10 years had passed since I started playing the game of sekkusu with my childhood friend. - Chapter 31. Marie-chan is good at sewing.

Chapter 31. Marie-chan is good at sewing.

Despite being in the same class, Haruhime and I would barely speak to each other as the days passed by. With an upcoming track meet coming up, Haruhime seemed to be getting busier and busier after school.

After school I would accompany Fukuo during his practice sessions. It slightly helped to keep my minds get distracted.

Still, the fact that Haruhime would not come on Wednesdays anymore made me ache in some inner part of my heart.

“Sagara, you don’t seem to be in good spirits. What’s wrong?”

Being in charge of props together, Inawashiro would often call out to me.

“Something bothering you? If it’s fine, I’m all ears.”

” It’s nothing.”

With a crisp movement, she was sewing, making costumes for the stage. Contrary to her appearance, Inawashiro was unexpectedly adept. She was sewing a difficult-looking costume smoothly with a sewing machine with almost no difficulty at all.

Next to Inawashiro, I was cutting a piece of cardboard into the shape of a leaf with a pair of scissors to make a tree which would be used as a stage prop.

“It’s nothing at all.”

“It cannot be nothing now, can it? I can tell just by looking at you.”

Inawashiro stopped her hands and glanced at me.

“Some sort of worry? Maybe, don’t tell me, is it Love?”

“…… As if.”

“Then what is it? Although, I do know that you don’t have any relationships to be worried about such kind of things in the first place.”

“It’s none of your business. But …… I won’t deny it.”

The shapes of the leaves were disordered. The green colored paper was too misshaped to be even called a leaf.

“Humans are difficult.”

“Ahaha”

Inawashiro said as she started with her sewing machine yet again.

“That’s what I call ‘having problems’.”

“…… I don’t know what is being thought about anymore. Whether it is someone else, or myself.”

“Does that mean you don’t know how you feel?”

“I guess so,……. I used to think I was a strong person.

I started remembering the time in my last year of junior high school, when I felt like being the loneliest person in my life.

“Even though I look like this now, I was actually a pretty good extrovert myself back then, you know.”

“You?”

Inawashiro laughed funny.

“Sorry, sorry, I just couldn’t imagine you like that. After all, Sagara doesn’t seem to be that kind of a guy in anyway possible.”

“I was trying to fix it. But I got tired of it along the way. Instead of going crazy and having a good time, I started to prefer to stay at home, calm and relaxed.”

“That thing, I understand that quite well too.”

“I thought I had already gotten used to being alone.”

“But in reality, you’re not?”

“…. Maybe so.”

I decided to end up putting forth excuses.

“I guess I’ve been getting spoiled my entire life.”

It was just my imagination that I thought I was immune to loneliness. The only reason I was able to get through my loneliness was because of Haruhime.

I was pampered by Haruhime all this long.

The fact that she came to my house as a matter of course made me be spoiled by her. I had gotten too used to her talking to me and listening to me as a matter of course.

Somewhere in my heart, the act of her permitting me to be intimate with her physically, seemed all so obvious and natural to me.

… Perhaps it’s already too late for such regrets now.

“Sagara.”

Inawashiro tapped me on the shoulder and held out her hand.

“That, lend me.”

She then snatched the colored paper from me and began to move the scissors rhythmically while humming softly.

“Chyouki-Chyouki-Chyouki~. Chi-Chi-Daddy’s -Choki-Choki-Chokinko!”

[TL notes: I have a really bad feeling about this, so I am not going to elaborate on this. I don’t want to get censored.]

“…… What, is with that song?”

“Eh, damn, you don’t know it?! And I thought that everyone already knew this song. Choki-chyou-tune.”

While continuing to hum a strange tune, Inawashiro continued to move the scissors accordingly. While happily moving her hands along the tune, she cut out a small doll and showed it to me.

“Here, it’s done~”

“What in the universe is this?”

“Just open it up.”

Looking closely, I found that the doll had been split in half so that it could be opened. When I opened it as I was told, the paper cutout became a doll with their two hands holding each other.

“You’re …… really really skillful aren’t you?”

Looking at my astonished face, Inawashiro stared straight into my face.

“It can be so that, … your other side as well, is worrying about the same thing as you.”

“The same …… thing as me?”

“The amount of time spent together was the same. There is no way they are not thinking about the same thing. In addition, to the person they have spent a ton of time together, it is all the more possible, don’t you think so too?”

I stared at the paper doll inawashiro gave me.

Somehow, I felt little by little, courage coming to me by those words alone.