>>281737163
"Hey, Ta-kun... are you thinking about going to university?"
"But we still have two years left..."
"But, you know, isn't it about time you decided whether you want to go or not?"
"Well, of course I would if I could."
"What's with that answer, like the one you give when a friend invites you to go but you absolutely won't?"
We're facing each other across a small table, so our faces are close, our feet sometimes touch, and even our fingertips touch.
What if, the moment your fingers touched, you took her hand and gazed at the face that was close to you?
"But what's the point of asking me that?"
"Well... I want to know how far you're aiming."
"...In middle school, you didn't care about my future career path."
What if I let go of your hand and touched your cheek instead? What if I then brought my face closer?
Maybe, maybe, maybe...
"It's different from back then."
"What's different?"
It was as if reality was catching up with my delusions...
Hikari turned her face away from me slightly and looked down suggestively.
"...Anyway, it's different."
An expression that was never seen in middle school.
A possibility that was never felt in middle school.
I can only feel this now, when we go to different high schools and are farther apart than ever before.
"โฆโฆโฆโฆ"
"โฆโฆโฆโฆ"
An awkward, yet comfortable silence reigns in my room.
Hikari's face was once again flushed red, but she still had a faint smile on her face.
I don't think she was mistaken in the fact that she didn't feel awkward about this moment, and in fact, that she felt comfortable.
But right now, I didn't have the courage to simply follow that impulse.
No, I know that I've never had the courage to do that since we were kids, so my relationship with Hikari has remained the same and there has been no progress.
But then I had two heartbreaks for her. And then I had a huge, huge heartbreak for my first lover, who wasn't her.
It made me even more timid now than I was back then.
