Encounter

Kiryu Yume pushed open the convenience store door, with less than half of his soda-flavored lollipop left.

Morishita Ran had already gone far ahead, her dark blue short hair disappearing into a corner beyond the streetlights. He tossed the lollipop stick into the trash can by the entrance and headed toward the dorms.

He had taken fewer than twenty steps when someone called his name from behind.

"Kiryu-kun."

He turned around. Kushida Kikyo stood beside the vending machines outside the convenience store, her light brown bob swaying slightly in the night breeze. She carried a convenience store bag in one hand and waved at him with the other.

"You're still out this late." She walked a few steps closer, her canvas sneakers making almost no sound on the path.

"I just came to buy some things with a classmate. She went back first."

Kushida Kikyo came up beside him. "I saw you from inside the convenience store. You were talking to a blue-haired girl by the shelves, so I didn't want to interrupt. Is she someone from your class?"

"Yeah. She sits behind me."

"You two seem close, coming to the convenience store together so late." She switched the plastic bag to her other hand. "I came out because I ran out of toothpaste in the dorm, but then I saw chips on sale and picked up two bags. Every time I go into a convenience store, I end up buying things I hadn't planned on getting. Do you do that too?"

"Yeah. I'll go in planning to buy a carton of milk, then somehow have three extra things in my hands by checkout."

Kushida Kikyo gave a soft laugh, her eyes curving with it. "Then I've got one more than you. I always end up with at least four extra things. Last time I bought shampoo, and when I came out, I had a bag of marshmallows, a pack of cookies, a bottle of green tea, and a magazine. I still haven't even opened the magazine."

"Why buy a magazine if you're not going to read it?"

"The cover was cute. It was a cat special, and there was a cat lying on tatami with its belly up. I couldn't walk away after seeing it."

As Kiryu Yume listened to her, he noticed something subtle. Whenever she finished speaking, she left an opening for him. If he wanted to respond, he could; if not, she would simply keep talking. She never let the conversation die, but she never made him feel forced to answer, either.

Her way of talking reminded him of Yamamura Miki, but Yamamura Miki went quiet because she was nervous. Kushida Kikyo was the opposite—she seemed talkative because she knew how to put others at ease.

The two walked down the path together, their shadows stretched long, then short beneath the streetlights. A night breeze blew in from the school building, carrying a faint lingering smell of rubber from the track.

Kushida Kikyo tucked her windblown hair behind her ear and turned to look at him. "Is it quiet in your dorm at night? The people next door to us start playing music at exactly eleven every night. You can hear the drums right through the wall. The dorm supervisor has knocked on their door several times, but it never helped. Eventually, everyone on the floor got used to it. At eleven, we all automatically put on headphones."

"It's about the same on our side. The room next door plays games late at night, and whenever they lose, they pound on the desk. At first, people would knock on the wall. Later, whenever they lost, everyone started pounding along with them. The rhythm even matched."

Kushida Kikyo blanked for a moment, then her eyes curved as she laughed. It was not a polite laugh, but a half-laugh that slipped out of her throat before she could stop it. "Everyone pounding together is way too funny. The boys' dorms in Class D are pretty much the same, except they talk loudly late at night. Their conversations are always about one of two things—which class has the prettiest girls, or whether PE can be moved to the afternoon. Sometimes they go on until one in the morning, then spend the next day's early classes asleep on their desks."

"The boys in Class A talk about the same things. They're just quieter."

"Quieter because they're afraid the next room will hear them, or because there are fewer people talking?"

"Because Katsuragi-kun sleeps next door. He gets up at six in the morning to work out. If they wake him, he comes over and knocks on the door. Nobody wants to deal with that."

Kushida Kikyo laughed, her steps becoming a little lighter. "The boys' dorm in Class A sounds more interesting than I imagined. I thought you were all the type to turn off the lights at ten on the dot, read separately, and never say a word."

"That's the library, not the dorm."

"True." She looped the plastic bag around her fingers, then tilted her head toward him. Her tone held a touch of curiosity, but not too much. "Speaking of which, that Katsuragi-kun in your class always sits in the front during meetings. He doesn't say much when he speaks, but every word is specific. Ichinose told me about your class's class fund system last time. He was the one who proposed it, right?"

"Yeah. He set up the system, and he's the one keeping an eye on it."

"Someone who could come up with a system like that..." Kushida Kikyo thought for a moment. "He probably isn't the type to pound on walls with you."

"He doesn't need to pound on walls. He just has to stand outside the next room's door, and it goes quiet on its own."

Kushida Kikyo laughed but did not continue asking. Kiryu Yume noticed that she stopped at just the right point whenever Class A came up—she had mentioned Katsuragi only because the conversation had naturally turned there from the wall-pounding, and after one question, she let it go.

"Oh, right. Suzune asked me for your contact information yesterday." When Kushida Kikyo spoke again, her tone was slightly lighter than before. The transition was natural, as though she had simply followed the previous topic about classes.

"Yeah. She added me."

"She rarely takes the initiative to add people as friends. Even in class, she keeps to herself. She barely says anything during group discussions." She hooked the plastic bag over her wrist. "I was a little surprised that she'd take the initiative to add a boy from Class A. Did you know each other before?"

"Not really. She needed something from me. We exchanged a few words, then started arguing. You know what she's like."

Kushida Kikyo gave a quiet half-laugh from her throat. "That does sound like Suzune. Last time, I asked if I could borrow her notes to copy them. She looked at me for three seconds and said two words—'Take your own.'"

Kushida Kikyo laughed again, but the laughter faded a little faster at the end than before. "I want to be friends with her, but she never really pays much attention to me. I've talked to her several times since school started. When I asked to walk home with her after class, she said she had to return to the dorm first. But I saw her eating alone in a corner of the cafeteria. Maybe she just doesn't think I'm worth being friends with."

Her tone did not grow heavier when she said that. It kept the same rhythm as when she had talked about chips. But Kiryu Yume noticed that, unlike before, she did not naturally add something like "but it's fine." She simply switched the plastic bag to her other hand and quietly waited for him to respond.

"She's not singling you out. She's like that with everyone. She's left several of my messages on read without replying. In the end, she didn't even answer when I said good night."

"It can't be easy talking to Suzune." Kushida Kikyo shifted her gaze toward the streetlight ahead, and her light brown short hair swayed gently in the night breeze.

She did not ask what they had argued about, nor did she ask what Suzune had wanted his help with. She only said, "It can't be easy for you," with a hint of understanding in her voice, but no more than that.

For the first time, Kiryu Yume realized that someone could make him want to say more without pressing him for answers.

Kushida Kikyo fell silent for a moment, then turned her head toward him. Her voice was as gentle as it had been when they talked about the dorms, as if she were casually asking about something entirely unrelated. "Kiryu-kun, did Suzune ever tell you anything? About her past, for example, or about middle school?"

Kiryu Yume glanced at her. "No. She barely says anything unnecessary. There's no way she'd bring up her past on her own."

Kushida Kikyo blinked twice, then smiled. There was a trace of relief in her curved eyes, but it lasted less than half a beat before she blinked it away.

"Right. That's just Suzune's personality." She tucked her hair behind her ear, and the two continued walking.

When they reached the fork leading to the dorm buildings, Kushida Kikyo stopped.

"Kiryu-kun, if Suzune doesn't reply when you talk to her next time..." She tilted her head, and her light brown bob swayed beneath the streetlight. "Don't be mad at her. She might just not know how to reply. It doesn't mean she hates you."

Kiryu Yume looked at her. The face beneath her bob looked sincere in the streetlight, and her tone was as natural as when she had been talking about chips.

"I know. I'm not mad at her."

Kushida Kikyo nodded, then turned and walked several steps toward the girls' dorm. Suddenly, she turned back, both hands behind her back as the plastic bag swayed lightly from her wrist.

"Let's talk again sometime. Thanks for walking with me." She smiled with curved eyes, then turned around and continued on. Her light brown short hair swayed a few times beneath the streetlights, her canvas sneakers nearly soundless against the path, until her back disappeared into the lights at the dorm entrance.

Kiryu Yume stood at the fork and watched her go.

When she had asked about "middle school," her tone had been exactly the same as when she talked about dorms and chips—gentle, casual, as though it was just something that had come up. But after hearing him say no, she had smiled. There had been something relieved in that smile, something that flashed for less than half a beat before disappearing.

He had seen a similar expression before, when he had caught Kamuro Masumi stealing drinks at the convenience store—when someone had brushed against a forbidden topic, only to realize they had not actually touched it.

He put his hands into his uniform pockets and headed toward the boys' dorm.

Why did Kushida Kikyo care whether Suzune had mentioned middle school to him? The question turned over in his mind, but he found no answer.

During the first half of their conversation, when she talked about dorms, chips, and cat magazines, she had been as natural as if they had known each other for years. Every topic landed exactly within the range he was willing to engage with—not too deep, not too shallow. But whenever the topic turned to Suzune, she had noticeably switched the plastic bag from hand to hand more often.

He pushed open the dormitory door. The white light of the elevator lobby illuminated the far end of the corridor.