Traveling With a Beautiful Girl - Chapter 43: Murky

By the time we returned to Hamamatsu station, taking a plane from Naha Airport, then a limousine bus, and finally a bullet train, the time had already passed 7 in the evening. Whether it was from travel fatigue or the unusual experiences of the day, a fatigue heavy as lead had descended upon my entire body.

“That went by so quickly, didn’t it?”

On the train platform, Kanade-san stretched, saying “nn-.”

By looking at her, I couldn’t sense any fatigue. Her complexion seemed to say that she could still keep working. Corporate slaves are scary.

…However, perhaps it was just my imagination.

Kanade-san, having returned to her suit, seemed somewhat… lonely. The vibrant radiance she had at the beach was now hidden, and I could see the same signs of despair and impatience I’d seen at the izakaya last night. It seemed as if negative emotions were seeping out.

For some reason, I felt uneasy. Once I got swept up in the wave of people, I felt like I’d returned to reality.  I felt a sense of illusion, as if everything that happened today was a dream.

And then, the unease. The faint scent of the tide that remained at the back of my nostrils was solid proof that I had swum in the sea at Okinawa.

That trace too, would soon disappear.

Ah, it’s bothering me.

–“Please don’t end up becoming a boring adult like me.”

…Ah, I see.

I got it. I understood why I was feeling this unease. The current Kanade-san… might be what I look like 10 years from now.

I stopped walking.

“What’s the matter, Sho-kun?”

To Kanade-san, I said, “There’s a place I want to go to before we exit the ticket gates…”