Sendai-san who is not my mine — 206
Translated by KaiesV
Edited by KaiesV
If you don’t like being home alone, come visit me.
Sendai-san said such a thing to me, so I went to her part-time job, but when I came back, I was still alone. Sendai-san hasn’t come back even after waiting for an hour or two, and since I was with Maika earlier, I feel even lonelier alone.
「It’s the same as if you went out to play.」
On the bed, I throw the stuffed black cat in my hand toward the door and stop. The black cat is innocent. The only one to blame is Sendai-san for not coming home earlier. I feel like hitting the stuffed animal because she puts in a part-time job on Sundays.
I lay down and put the black cat on my stomach.
I am not overeating, nor am I too hungry, but I don’t feel refreshed. I’m feeling foggy and irritable.
Sendai-san, who was on this bed yesterday, is not here.
Her body temperature and smell are only mine, and now I don’t even have a piece of her.
It’s just that small thing, such a small thing, that makes Sunday seem like the worst thing ever.
I knew I shouldn’t have gone to her part-time job.
I am wondering what kind of person the college senior who she was talking to me in a friendly manner is like.
I wonder what kind of people the people at the store who were smiling with her are like.
One or two things that bother me, like what kind of things they talked about, or whether they met outside of that café, or other silly things that bother me, get attached to each other, and the things that bother me become bigger things. I also wonder what Sendai-san looks like working part-time except today, and how she looked at me like I was one of many.
Sigh, exhale, and tug on the black cat’s tail.
Sendai-san irritates me, with or without her here.
I cover myself with a comforter and close my eyes.
Still unable to get Sendai-san out of my mind, I curl up into a small ball. After spending five or ten minutes in the darkness I made on the bed, I hear a tapping of small sounds.
「I’m home.」
Sendai-san’s voice follows the sound of banging on the door.
I slowly raise myself up and get off the bed.
After putting the black cat back on the bookshelf and exhaling, I opened the door and said in a small voice,「Welcome home,」Sendai-san smiled at me.
「I’ll drink orange juice. Do you want something too?」
「Yes.」
「What do you want?」
「The same as Sendai-san.」
「Are you coming this way? Or do you want me to bring it over there?」
「Bring it to me.」
「Okay, I’ll be back in a minute.」
With that, Sendai-san turns her back to me, so I slam the door shut. Within five minutes, there is another knock on the door, and I let Sendai-san in. Holding two glasses filled with orange juice, she placed them on the table and sat down next to me.
With the bed as a backdrop, we both sipped our orange juice side by side.
「The lipstick, did you take it off?」
Sendai-san says in her usual, nonchalant voice.
「I did.」
「It looks good on you, though.」
The soft voice doesn’t know what it’s thinking.
I put down my glass of half-drunk orange juice and look at Sendai-san. But she just smiles at me and I still don’t know what she’s thinking when I look at her.
「I was glad Miyagi came today. If you don’t want to come alone, just come back and play with Utsunomiya like you did today.」
「I only went with Maika to the place where Sendai-san works because she wanted to see it, and I’m not going there anymore. Besides, the school festival is coming up soon, and your part-time job is over.」
「Well, yeah.」
Sendai-san says in a light voice and drinks her orange juice.
Sendai-san’s lips stick to the glass, the orange contents decrease, and her throat moves. I can only follow the orange juice so far, and from there it goes through somewhere I can’t see.
A glass, one-third empty, is placed on the table. I wanted to touch the orange that I could no longer see, so I stopped, reaching down to touch Sendai-san’s throat, just between her collarbone and such.
「Anyway, about the school festival, I don’t think that was fair.」
I grab Sendai-san’s skirt and pulls it down.
「What do you mean by not fair?」
「You told Maika about the school festival instead of me because you thought she would ask you to come.」
「That’s right. I don’t want to be told not to come.」
As she said this, Sendai-san tries to touch my hand that is holding her skirt.
「…It’s so honest and weird.」
I retract my hand before she catches me.
「Isn’t that awful? I mean, honesty is usually a good thing.」
「It’s not pleasing me. It’s weird to think that if you’re suddenly honest, there’s something going on… What are you thinking?」
「What, I don’t tell you that honestly, Miyagi won’t let me do anything. That’s all.」
Sendai-san says quietly and turns his body toward me.
She stares at me so intently that I can no longer look at her and look away.
「What do you mean by that?」
When I blurted out the question, Sendai-san stroked my earring.
「You won’t let me kiss you, you won’t let me touch you. I don’t like that.」
The finger that stroked the piercing touches my lips.
Her body heat comes close and whispers in my ear.
「I want to kiss you, Miyagi.」
「We’re not talking about that right now.」
I pushed Sendai-san’s body to keep her body temperature away from me.
「Even if we weren’t talking about that, I just wanted to kiss you.」
「You can’t just say whatever you want.」
「If Miyagi would tell me without you telling me, I wouldn’t, but Miyagi wouldn’t tell me.」
「I don’t have to tell you that.」
「I knew you would say that. So I’m telling you. Miyagi, let me kiss you.」
Sendai-san says these things without hesitation.
I don’t know how she can be so straightforward about her desires. She says it in a soft voice, as if it were natural, then grabs my arm and pulls me back. Even then, she doesn’t go any further. She waits for my next words.
She rarely forces me to do anything.
「Miyagi. Just say, okay.」
She says with just a little bit of pain, and Sendai-san puts a lot of pressure on the hand that holds my arm. I peel off the hand and look at her.
「It’s not the kissing I want.」
「What do you want?」
「Let me make sure.」
I tug at the knit that wraps around Sendai-san’s upper body.
「…What is?」
「The marks I made yesterday. To see if it’s gone.」
Red marks covering her upper body.
It covers her even when she’s the Sendai-san I don’t know, something that her senioir at the university and her part-time job cannot know.
Something that only I know, even though Sendai-san is unknown to me.
Even now that her part-time job is over, I want to make sure it’s still there.
「You’re not slowing down enough to punish me, though, are you?」
「It’s not a punishment, so if you don’t like it, don’t watch it.」
When I told her so, Sendai-san said,「Do as you please.」
