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Chapter 200: Everything, it\'s Sendai-san\'s fault — 200

Translated by KaiesV

Edited by KaiesV

Before going to the lecture hall, I stop by the bathroom and stand in front of the mirror.

I take out the lipstick that Sendai-san gave me out of my bag.

When I take off the cap, I smell the sweet fragrance and remember the dream I had today.

I call Hazuki.

I, who attract Sendai-san.

Her softness and smoothness came back to me, and I shook my head as if I was thinking something terribly disgusting.

It’s just stuck in my head because I’ve had two similar dreams in a short period of time.

I told myself to look in the mirror and saw my lips, which were not painted with anything. I stroked them with my fingertips and they slid over my lips without getting stuck.

It’s not rough.

Not sure if I should apply a lipstick.

I exhale and bite my lip.

I close the cap and tuck the lipstick into my bag.

I apply the lipstick after coming to the university, because it is troublesome to use it at home because Sendai-san might say something about it. But not today. I had a strange dream and I’m not in the mood. The sweet smell reminds me of kissing Sendai-san and more. I don’t want to dream a little too big and get caught up in it all.

It’s all, all of it is Sendai-san’s fault.

I turn my back on the me in the mirror and head for the lecture hall.

Perhaps it’s because of the long summer vacation, but I feel as if summer is still going on in October. Maybe I feel that way even more so because there are days when I still feel hot, though not so hot that I need air conditioning, and there are days when I feel like eating ice cream. Even when I’m in college, I can’t get summer out of my head and want to hang out at home and watch the penguins at the aquarium.

With a hazy head, I walk down the hallway, open the door, and enter the lecture hall. When I looked around the two-thirds full, buzzing room for Maika, I quickly found a familiar face.

「Morning.」

I call out to Maika, who replies,「Good morning,」and sits down next to me.

「Hmmm? You’re not wearing lipstick today.」

Maika, seeing my face, says in a light voice, and I reply with an equally light「yes.」

I use it because Sendai-san gave it to me as a birthday present.

When she saw me applying the lipstick that Sendai-san gave me for the first time, she asked,「Are you going to stop somewhere on your way home?」I answered yes to Maika, who asked me, since then, it has become a matter of course that I am applying the lipstick. I appreciate that it isn’t considered unnatural to wear a lipstick, but it’s a little troublesome to be considered unnatural if I don’t.

Sendai-san interferes in my life whether she is there or not.

「That lipstick is nice, isn’t it? It’s just like Sendai-san.」

「Really?」

「Yes. It looks good on Shiori. Maybe I’ll have her pick one out for me too.」

Maika, with her beautifully colored lips, says in a bright voice.

I know that at times like this, I should really be saying things like, “Let’s all go shopping together,” or “Come to my house.” But I am the one who doesn’t want to speak such common words.

I do not want Maika to meet Sendai-san.

I strongly agree.

Sendai-san makes me feel incredibly small-minded. So, I can no longer do what I can take for granted as a friend.

My mouth doesn’t open as if sealed with glue.

On the other hand, if I kept quiet, I felt a pain in the pit of my stomach as if Maika would contact Sendai-san and we would both go to look for a lipstick.

Under the desk, hands clenched.

My fingernails dug into my palms, but I still clenched my hands, and Maika reminded me.

「Come to think of it, Sendai-san’s birthday is in August, isn’t it?」

「Yes, it’s August.」

I answer shortly and slowly open my hand.

「What does she like, Sendai-san? Not things, but people or places.」

「A cat, I guess?」

「Ahhh, a cat! I don’t know if I like it enough to go out of my way to find it on my days off.」

「I think she likes it.」

I might give Sendai-san some cat goods for her birthday next year.

Given the flow of the conversation, Maika was likely to say something like that, so I asked her.

「Maika. Why don’t we have dinner and go home today?」

Since Maika has gotten to know Sendai-san well enough to keep in touch with her, it wouldn’t be surprising if she gave him a gift, or she could give her a gift without telling her. So I know it doesn’t matter what Maika says now, but if it’s about presents, I don’t think I want to hear it.

「What about Sendai-san?」

「Working part-time.」

「Is it a part-time job at the new café she started?」

「Yes. She said she’d be home late today.」

I would like to be with someone if I can, because I feel like I’m home alone today and I’m thinking about unnecessary things.

「Sendai-san is amazing, isn’t she? She’s working part-time. I had an image of college students having free time, when in fact they are quite busy.」

「I don’t think she needs to work so much, but she wants to work during winter break too.」

「Sendai-san is different from the image I had of her in high school. I didn’t have the image of her tutoring or working part-time all the time. The old image of her was that she’d join a circle and have fun.」

「Indeed. And Ibaraki-san and the others were fancy.」

Maika nodded at my words.

There was a time when Sendai-san, who was always with Ibaraki-san, who stood out in class, was close to my image of Ibaraki-san as well. Now that image is nowhere to be found. Sendai-san has been reconstructed in my mind and has become the Sendai-san that only I know.

「Ohh, right. Would you like to have dinner today at the cafe where Sendai-san works part-time?」

「Eh, why?」

Maika suddenly said something unexpected and I couldn’t help but ask back.

「Why, because I want to see Sendai-san working. Don’t you want to see her too, Shiori?」

I would like to know her with a part-time job.

But I don’t really want to see it.

I can’t honestly say I want to see her because I’m afraid that if I knew the new environment surrounding her, I would want her to quit her part-time job even more strongly than she does now.

「I didn’t get the details of where she works.」

「Well, let’s ask her. I’m sure she’ll get back to us before we leave.」

I said in a panic as Maika pulled out her phone from her bag.

「I have a restaurant I want to go to today.」

「Where?」

「The last time I was here, Asakura-san told me about this place.」

She named a friend she met when she started college.

「Oh, the cafe with the cute cream soda?」

「Yeah–yeah.」

「That’s where I wanted to go, too. Shall we go to Sendai-san’s place some other time?」

As I nod vaguely at Maika’s words, the door opens and the teacher enters.

The class begins immediately, but the content does not stick in my head.

Due to the fact that I had been talking about Sendai-san until just before, she was taking up the majority of my time, and I had no place to keep the voices I heard, nor did my hands move to take notes.

Unlike the tutoring job, I can go see if I can get a job at a cafe.

I had thought about this several times, but when Maika told me, I became aware of it again. Sendai-san also said that I should come to her place to have dinner.

A time that will never be mine.

It’s depressing to imagine myself just watching it.

I don’t want to think about it too much, so I push the part-time job out of my mind, and now the dream I had this morning comes face to face.

Sendai-san may have had a similar dream.

If so, what kind of me am I in her dreams?

Many times I think about things that I have never thought about before.

In the end, I end the day unable to concentrate on my classes and go with Maika to a café that is not Sendai-san’s part-time job.

While Sendai-san works part-time, we chat nonsense. I don’t know about the menu at Sendai-san’s part-time job, but the cream soda at this cafe is cute and the food is delicious, just as Asakura-san said. Even being with Maika is fun. That doesn’t change even if Sendai-san is working part-time.

Time flies by and I part ways with Maika.

Returning home, I turn on the light in the common space and sit down in a chair.

Sendai-san hasn’t returned yet.

I am frustrated that she has not returned, even though I was told she would be late.

My mind was a mess all day today.

Sendai-san is making me a mess.

I should’ve been used to being alone, but I can’t get used to not having Sendai-san around. I should have been used to people who said they would come home and never returned, but just the late return of Sendai-san, whom I know will return, makes me anxious. It should have been fun earlier, but it is not fun because Sendai-san is working part-time.

On the table, I take out a lipstick from my bag and stand it up.

「…Hazuki.」

I know no one is there, but I call out in a small voice.

Quickly, quickly, quickly.

As soon as possible.

I wish you would come back, Sendai-san.