About a week had passed since I started living with Yuno.
One day, after we had finished dinner and cleared the dishes—
“Oh, right. I had some money left over today, so I bought pudding. The kind that was on sale.”
Yuno peeled back the plastic film which still bore a discount sticker and handed me a cup of pudding and a spoon.
As she smiled, her droopy eyes narrowing with a little “ehehe,” she looked like an innocent child showing me a drawing for the first time.
Normally, I don’t eat things like this. If I’m going to have something sweet, I prefer it from a proper shop. To be honest, discounted pudding isn’t my thing.
But seeing that innocent expression, I couldn’t bring myself to refuse. I took the spoon and the pudding, and we sat facing each other and opened the lid.
“Hey, do you have anyone you’re dating?”
It was a sudden question.
Yuno brought it up just as I took my first bite of pudding.
“If I did, I don’t think I’d be letting a stranger crash at my place.”
“True. That’s a good point.”
When I spoke with a dismissive tone, Yuno giggled.
“Have you never had anyone?”
“Huh? Why are you asking on the assumption that I’ve never had anyone?”
“So, you have?”
“I did…”
“A guy? A girl?”
After a short pause, I spoke softly.
“…A girl.”
—Ever since I can remember, the only people who ever made my heart race were other girls.
I vaguely realized I was someone who could only love women during my third year of high school. But I was too scared to tell them how I felt, and every one of those feelings ended as an unrequited crush.
Or rather, I ended them—I forced a lid over my emotions.
After entering the workforce, I started going to the kind of places where you meet people, and I eventually got a girlfriend.
She told me she was bi, that she liked men too.
Her smile was cute, she was kind, and I loved being with her. I was happy.
But I had my career. After starting my own company, the business grew rapidly; that was more exciting than anything else, and I became obsessed with it.
I wanted to cherish both the time I spent with my partner and my work.
However, I began turning down her invitations on my days off more and more, using work as an excuse.
I might have been complacent, assuming that no matter the reason, she would never leave me.
Then one day, she suddenly told me, “I’ve found someone I love, so I want to break up.”
After that, we lost contact.
A few months later, I found out through social media that she had married.
In the photos, there was a man who was presumably her husband, and her, smiling happily while holding a baby.
I told Yuno these things, bit by bit.
…I had managed to keep these memories sealed away thanks to the busyness of my work, but because of Yuno, they were being unearthed one after another.
My hand stopped moving the spoon.
“That was three years ago… and that was the end of it.”
I could tell my voice had grown stiff.
“I’m done with it. I realized that romance is nothing but noise. I have my work. I can earn a living on my own. So, I’ve decided to live alone.”
I let out a light sigh and spoke as if cutting the subject off.
Yuno listened without saying a word. She slowly moved her spoon through the pudding, watching me quietly.
“What about you?”
The silence, which felt like she was walking on eggshells around me, became uncomfortable, and I instinctively asked her back.
Perhaps it was also because our conversation during dinner a few days ago had been lingering in my mind.
“Eh, me?”
“The thing from the other day. About being alone since middle school. What happened?”
“Ah…”
“I mean, you don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.”
Yuno remained silent for a while, then began to speak in fragments.
“My dad and mom got divorced when I was little. I lived in an apartment with just my mom for a long time, but from middle school on, she hardly ever came home. She’d just leave money.”
Yuno took a bite of pudding and continued.
“Then, just when I thought she was finally back, she suddenly told me, ‘I’m living here with a new man, so get out,’ and she kicked me out.”
“…How old were you?”
“Hmm, sixteen, I think.”
Sixteen… she was still just a child.
“Well, at first my mom gave me some money. But then the allowance stopped, and I was in a real pinch.”
Yuno scratched her cheek and continued with a silly grin.
“So, I was hanging out in a park because I had no money and nowhere to go, and someone picked me up. …I was happy. But because I’d been alone for so long, once I stopped being alone, I became terrified of spending nights by myself.”
She kept talking, piling it on without worrying about my reaction.
“If I kissed them, or had sex, they’d need me. As long as they needed me, I didn’t have to live alone.”
“…But it never lasts long. Once they get bored, it’s bye-bye. Then I just wait for the next person to pick me up.”
After taking a big scoop of pudding with her spoon, she murmured as if talking to herself.
“I feel like I’ve reached this point without ever really understanding things like love. I just wanted to not be thrown away, to not be alone… that was all.”
Yuno paused, then started talking again with that same silly grin, her eyes looking at something far away.
“The last lady, it seemed she found someone else she liked, so she started letting him into the room while I was out.”
“I went out for a bit of shopping, and when I came home, I happened to walk in right as the two of them were kissing.”
“…Was that the rainy day?”
“Yep. I was troubled because it started raining and I had nowhere to go, and that’s when you picked me up. I was so lucky.”
Yuno spoke with a smile on her face the entire time.
Matter-of-factly. As if she were telling a funny story about someone else.
“Listen. I’ve been thinking this since the other day.”
Before I knew it, the words had escaped my mouth.
“Why are you laughing while you tell me things like that?”
“Eh…?”
“It’s not right. None of that is your fault. You don’t have to force yourself to smile.”
Yuno’s eyes widened. She stared at me with a look of surprise.
For a moment, I thought I saw her brown pupils tremble.
Damn, I thought. Maybe I said too much. I felt like I’d said something unnecessary. I really don’t know how to be kind in moments like this.
Yuno froze for a while, then softly closed her eyes and turned her face toward the wall.
She stretched once, let out a light sigh, and spoke softly.
“…But I guess so. You’re not doing romance anymore, right?”
“Eh…”
I was bewildered by the sudden change in topic.
“—Hey, Miss?”
Yuno rested her cheek on her right arm and tilted her head.
Her eyes, so large they were startling, looked up at me, staring intently.
That piercing, direct gaze sent a shiver through me, and my heart leaped.
Then, she spoke in a quiet voice.
“If I told you, ‘Please don’t throw me away’—what would you do?”
—What?
My heart thudded again.
Yuno’s large eyes were vacant, devoid of light. Although the corners of her mouth were slightly upturned, there was no warmth in her expression. Her face was like an ice sculpture.
That face, which was supposed to be innocent and cute, looked like a completely different creature in that moment.
My heart continued to pound. The hand holding the spoon trembled slightly, and a thin layer of sweat broke out.
No words came to me.
I could do nothing but stare back.
I wonder how long we stayed like that.
“Ah… uh…”
Just as I thought I finally found my voice—
“Ahaha!”
Yuno narrowed her droopy eyes, and her cheeks lifted. The cold, expressionless mask of a moment ago melted away, returning to a natural smile.
“Just kidding, just a joke! Sorry for saying something that puts you on the spot. I’ll find a part-time job quickly and move out.”
“Eh…”
“Don’t worry. I’ll make sure not to be a nuisance to you.”
Yuno said this with a gentle smile. She pushed back her chair, stood up, and smoothly carried the empty pudding cup to the sink.
“Right then. I’m borrowing the shower!”
Saying only that in a bright voice, she trotted off into the bathroom.
I was left alone in the living room.
Still holding the spoon, I couldn’t move for a while.
My heart was still thumping loudly, pulsing through my entire body.