Chapter 4: The Door to Eina (2) |
I was face up, looking up at the sky.
“Where am… I?”
I muttered, my voice hoarse.
It wasn’t raining, I could see the sun through the gaps in the trees.
“Am I back… in my own time?”
I tried to get up, but I couldn’t move my body through the pain. I wouldn’t be able to get home on my own.
I’d have to call for help.
I forced my battered arm to search my pocket, but I couldn’t find my phone.
Then, I saw some rectangular thing in front of my hand.
I laughed. The phone was broken.
The display was shattered and the body twisted.
Only the demon strap was unscathed, so it was definitely my phone.
I couldn’t call for help.
I couldn’t move.
My body was freezing from the rain.
I see, I’m going to die.
Oddly enough, I didn’t feel despair.
It was Eina I was thinking of, I wondered if she managed to get home.
I’m sure she did, she was clever. She’d just go somewhere with people and then ask for help. It was a shame they wouldn’t be able to find me, but that was unavoidable, I’d come back to five years in the future after all.
It wasn’t a happily ever after, but it wasn’t a bad ending either.
I’d been able to save Eina, that was enough.
I closed my eyes.
The next time I opened my eyes, the first thing I saw was a ceiling light.
It was an awfully low ceiling I thought.
The room itself was shaking.
“Where…”
“You’re in an ambulance,” a voice spoke from my side.
My heart clenched. It was the President. I realised she was holding my hand when I felt her warmth.
“…You saved me? Why?”
“Don’t speak for now.”
Just as she said, I closed my mouth, my eyelids grew heavy, and I once more lost consciousness.
When I came to, I was in a hospital, lying on a bed and completely covered in bandages. My entire body ached.
“Shuu! Thank goodness…!” My mother peered into my face and let out a breath of relief. My father was behind her, “Thank Minekawa-san.”
Because it was my mother speaking, it took me a little while to realise she meant the President when she said Minekawa.
“What do you mean… thank?”
“Minekawa-san called for help, she saved you,” my father told me.
“Apparently she heard you went to where that landslide happened and she hadn’t heard from you, so she thought something must have happened. And then she found that you’d fallen down the cliff and weren’t moving and called for help.”
I mentally questioned his explanation.
How did she know I was there? Did she hear from Ruka-senpai or Sakai?
No, I hadn’t said anything to them.
Besides, I hadn’t contacted her. In the first place, I didn’t know her phone number.
She had lied.
But why?
The next day, many people came to visit me.
The first was Sakai, skipping school. For a moment I was touched that he was so worried about me, but then:
“So you fell down a cliff? What was it like, did it hurt?”
Sakai entered reporter mode. I was half angry at that being his reason, and half darkly amused.
“Obviously it hurt.”
“Tell me everything you can. I’ll write an article.”
“I don’t remember much. It was sudden, and I lost consciousness quickly.”
“Ah, that’s a shame. Well, I’m glad you’re safe.”
He never changes.
The next to visit was Ruka-senpai. It looked like she’d come right after school.
“Shuu-kuuuuuun, you’re aliiiiiiive!”
She cried out as soon as she saw me.
“I’m sorry for worrying you.”
“It’s fine as long as you’re safe… Umm, I’m going to ask something strange,” she wiped her tears and looked seriously at me, “you didn’t jump, did you?”
Apparently, she thought I’d tried to kill myself.
“No! It was a complete accident!”
“I’m glad. No thinking of things like that, okay?”
“It’s okay, I’m not that poor in the head.”
I did my best to smile and hide my unease. I thought I’d seen Eina, but was that a dream? If I just fell down the cliff in reality…
It seemed all too likely.
But I soon thought again, it couldn’t be, I could still feel her warmth, still hear her voice.
I could still see her eyes, still see her…
It was just the tendency of people in the hospital to think the worst. I had to go and look for her as soon as I was discharged.
Over the next days, the rest of my classmates and the other two club members visited. Only one person hadn’t, the President.
Even though she was the one I wanted to speak with the most.
“Maybe she really does hate me…”
Just as I started to sadden myself with those thoughts, she appeared, on the fifth day since I was admitted.
“President!”
I shouted happily, having already given up.
“Has anyone come today?”
“No.”
“Is anyone planning to? Like anyone from our class, or your club?”
“I haven’t heard anything. They’ve already all visited I think.”
“I see. That’s fine then.”
What was fine?
She pulled up a stool and sat next to the bed.
“I’m sorry, I wanted to come sooner, but someone else was always here, so I couldn’t speak with you properly. You’ve got something to ask me, don’t you, literature club?”
“Yeah, I didn’t tell anyone where I was going, you shouldn’t have known, so how did you?”
“Because you told me, five years ago, right? That you shouted for me there and ended up with me somehow.”
Five years ago?
Called for her?
“It can’t be…”
“That’s right,” she gave a small smile, “I’m Eina.”
She proclaimed in her beautiful soprano.
I just stared at her with my eyes wide open in mute shock.
