After bidding farewell to Yui Yuigahama, Hiroto Tachibana returned home, took a shower, and changed into a fresh set of clean clothes.
As the cascading water washed away the perspiration from his body, his entire being felt remarkably refreshed.
Is this truly what it feels like to live completely unburdened by debt?
After a brief tidy-up, he stepped out the door and made his way toward the school.
A gentle morning breeze drifted over from the distant shoreline, carrying the faint, briny scent of seawater, feeling thoroughly crisp against his face.
Hiroto walked leisurely along the campus path.
Regarding his manuscript for Your Lie in April, he had currently only churned out the first volume.
Having written a mere fraction of the story, a distinct urge to slack off was already bubbling up within him.
This was the inherent drawback of becoming far too relaxed; he absolutely had to subject himself to a bit of psychological pressure.
Furthermore, there was another matter to address: he needed to scout out a brand new publishing house.
However, there was no immediate rush; he intended to table that until after Your Lie in April was fully completed.
Just as he was lost in thought, a figure stepped out from the upcoming corner.
Long golden hair, an exquisitely gorgeous face, a form-fitting school uniform, and a perfectly proportioned absolute territory.
Marin Kitagawa had spotted him as well; her pace decelerated a fraction, yet she didn’t bring herself to a halt.
”Morning,” Hiroto initiated the greeting first.
”Mm.”
Marin felt that he seemed vastly different, yet she was entirely incapable of articulating where the discrepancy lay.
Hiroto’s demeanor was simply far too ordinary.
It made her feel a touch restless.
The two of them naturally fell into step beside each other.
As the wind swept past, it caused the tips of her hair to flutter subtly upward.
She lifted her hand to casually brush them aside, casting a brief, sideways glance toward Hiroto.
”Ta—Tachibana-kun seems to be quite early today.”
”Mm, I went out for a morning jog.”
”A morning jog?” Marin was mildly caught off guard.
“Weren’t you exceptionally busy previously, Tachibana-kun?”
”Thirty years to the east of the river, thirty years to the west; I am no longer the identical individual I was in the past.”
Marin cupped her hand over her mouth, the corner of her lips curving slightly upward, yet an underlying wave of discomfort simultaneously welled up within her.
”Um,” she suddenly spoke up.
”Mm?”
”Do you have your phone on you?”
Hiroto tilted his head toward her.
“I do, what’s the matter?”
”Give it to me,” Marin extended her hand, before swiftly tacking on an additional phrase.
“Give it to me, let’s exchange contact info!”
When she uttered those words, her line of sight wasn’t anchored to Hiroto at all; instead, she stared fixedly at the path stretching out ahead of them.
Hiroto retrieved his phone from his pocket and handed it over.
Marin accepted the device, her fingers tapping rapidly across the screen.
She promptly returned the phone, before immediately accelerating her stride.
”I’m heading out first, I’m on cleaning duty today.”
She didn’t bother turning her head a single frame as she delivered the line, her steps remarkably wide.
Marin walked at breakneck speed—so fast that the exact millisecond she rounded the bend and confirmed that the individual behind her could no longer perceive her, her pace finally grounded to a crawl.
Standing at the landing of the hallway corridor, she leaned her back heavily against the wall, taking a deep, ragged breath.
Her heart was thumping at a frantic velocity.
It wasn’t the sweet, cliché flutter of a startled fawn, but rather an indefinable, heavy sensation.
It felt intensely suffocating, tightly congested and thoroughly uncomfortable.
She retrieved her phone, staring intently at the specific contact entry she had just logged into her address book.
”Hiroto Tachibana.”
She stared fixedly at the name for a brief moment, before abruptly turning off the phone screen.
She was entirely incapable of deciphering what their current relationship even amounted to.
Classmates?
Friends?
Or…
To label them mere classmates—what standard classmates would ever experience an occurrence of that nature?
To label them friends—they had literally just exchanged contact information a mere sixty seconds prior.
To label them lovers?
That was even more structurally impossible.
As vivid recollections of the events that had transpired within that room flashed across her mind, her face began to burn once more.
But shifting her train of thought, Hiroto’s attitude toward her was simply far too commonplace.
It was precisely that of…
an ordinary classmate, an ordinary friend.
There were zero boundary-crossing actions, zero intimate terms of address, and even his gaze was entirely indistinguishable from his day-to-day baseline.
Marin couldn’t explicitly articulate the rationale, but she simply felt a distinct pang of heartache.
During that final stretch back in the room, she had faintly caught a similar resonated prompt echoing within her mind:
[Body has been completely restored to its initial state.]
If that was truly the factual reality, then what on earth existed between them?
Did those occurrences…
truly count as having transpired at all?
Marin could acutely perceive that every single instance she drew close to Hiroto, her heart rate would subconsciously skyrocket.
Framed in this light, this feature of the [body being restored to its initial state] was something she would have actively preferred to lack.
Had it not occurred, she would at least possess a perfectly legitimate, explicit justification.
But right now, everything was far too convoluted!
Just as Marin remained entirely trapped in her spinning thoughts, her emotional spectrum deeply tangled, Hiroto’s voice materialized directly beside her out of thin air.
”What exactly are you up to?”
”Ah—!”
Marin was startled out of her wits.
Her hand delivered a sharp tremor, causing her phone to slide straight out of her palm.
Hiroto’s reflexes were surgically precise; he extended his hand and caught the device with absolute stability.
He took in the sight of Marin looking thoroughly mortified and flushed with exasperation.
Hiroto exerted his absolute upper limit of facial control to suppress a sudden urge to laugh.
He had already sensed that Marin was acting distinctly peculiar moments ago.
Furthermore, this girl…
wasn’t she a fraction too foolish?
Even if she desperately desired to secure a location to hide away, she shouldn’t have selected the absolute nearest corner available.
Choosing a turn this close meant that the moment his stride accelerated a tiny fraction, he would naturally catch up instantly.
He extended the phone back toward her.
Marin didn’t immediately move to retrieve it.
She kept her head lowered, desperately trying to prevent Hiroto from catching sight of her earlobes, which had flushed a deep, intense crimson.
”T-Tachibana-kun…” Her voice was muffled, carrying a faint, barely perceptible trace of a sob.
“Why exactly did you come over here?
Isn’t your designated classroom located further back?”
”Ah, is that truly the case?” Hiroto registered the logistical layout, his tone filtering into an enlightened cadence.
“Haha, a momentary oversight; I completely forgot where my own classroom was located.”
Marin kept her head lowered, choosing not to shatter his blatant excuse.
She reached out her hand to retrieve the phone.
Yet what her fingers securely locked onto wasn’t the chassis of the phone, but rather Hiroto’s wrist.
Sliding smoothly from his wrist across the back of his hand, and from the back of his hand directly onto his palm, her fingers progressively tightened their grip, before she ultimately slipped the phone out of his palm.
”Um…
goodbye.”
She whipped her body around, bursting straight into her classroom without looking back a single time.
Hiroto stood rooted to the spot, lowering his gaze to inspect his hand for a brief frame, before turning around to make his way toward the International Culture Class.
It was a perfectly standard, mundane interaction; why on earth did it carry such a distinctly implicit, sensual undertone?
Upon returning to her seat, Marin buried her entire head completely into the crook of her arms, her cheek pressed tightly against the icy surface of her desk, her heart rate still operating at an absurd velocity.
That was far too audacious!
How on earth had she suddenly brought herself to execute an action of that nature?
So bizarre.
So incredibly bizarre.
Far too bold.
Though in reality, it wasn’t even truly that monumental of an audacity—after all, she had already touched that exact area back then.
But that had transpired within the confines of that room, not within the boundaries of objective reality!
In objective reality, what relationship did they even possess?
Furthermore, regarding that exact physical sequence she had just executed—while it didn’t strike her as peculiar initially, analyzing the details carefully right now yielded a terrifying conclusion.
That was an absolute, undisputed hint, wasn’t it?!
What on earth was she thinking?
Why on earth had she resorted to a gesture of that nature?
If her desire was to initiate a handful of intimate actions, there were clearly countless alternative methodologies available!
How had her brain experienced a sudden short-circuit, driving her to execute that exact maneuver?
If Hiroto truly misconstrued her intentions, would he conclude that she was exceptionally desperate for intimacy?
And if things truly manifested along those lines, what countermeasures could she even deploy?
Would he brand her as an incredibly loose woman?
The more her mind churned through the scenarios, the more chaotic it became.
Marin felt as though she no longer possessed the absolute capacity to face Hiroto; she didn’t even harbor the courage to cross paths with him again.
Yet, when all was said and done, matters absolutely had to be discussed and laid out with perfect clarity.
After remaining buried within her arms for a good while, she progressively lifted her head, her internal thoughts deeply wavering.
She desperately yearned for an authentic, explicitly defined relationship; she harbored no desire to continue dragging things along in this murky, ambiguous limbo.
Yet the moment the words formed at the absolute tip of her tongue, she found herself entirely clueless as to how to articulate them.
Next month, then.
The room access was structured on a strict weekly rotation.
Next week would officially mark the transition into next month.
When that threshold arrived and they were securely within that room, she would absolutely lay everything out with absolute clarity.
Marin took a deep, stabilizing breath, burying her face completely back into the crook of her arms.
Before that specific deadline arrived, she would simply…
let things persist like this for now.