Ch.194Epilogue. Never Meant to Stay (6)

After enjoying the hot springs leisurely for two days, we got back in the car and returned home.

The three of us collapsed in our room without even washing up as soon as we got back.

No matter how much we rested at the hot springs toward the end, it’s inevitable to feel tired after traveling.

I noticed the slightly dirty ceiling, but strangely, I liked it. It felt familiar somehow. Maybe because it’s the ceiling I’ve been seeing almost every day since coming to this world.

“Meow.”

Kuro jumped out of his cage and leaped onto my stomach. He’s gotten much heavier since I first started keeping him. Honestly, it feels quite weighty when he climbs on my stomach now.

We had left Kuro at Yuka’s house. When I asked if it would be okay to leave him there during our trip while we had our second-year final party, Yuka had readily nodded. She came over the day before to pick him up.

Even after everything that happened, I’m still receiving help from Yuka. I thought while stroking Kuro.

But somehow I felt less burdened by it. I wonder why.

Maybe because we’ve become that much closer.

Or maybe because I know there will be many opportunities to repay what I owe her.

“Meow.”

Kuro, who had been purring under my touch, meowed once more.

Looking at how casually he’s behaving after being left at someone else’s house for quite a while, this cat really is thick-skinned.

“…What should we order for dinner?”

Kagami, who was sprawled out on the floor, asked.

“Let’s get pizza, pizza.”

I said the first thing that came to mind when food delivery was mentioned.

“Pizza!”

Koko raised both arms and shouted, but then immediately dropped them again.

“Let’s rest a bit before ordering.”

She’s feeling lazy.

Actually, I’m feeling lazy too.

“The trip was fun, you know? But I think such a long car journey might be a bit too much.”

“You think so too, right?”

“Sleepy…”

“Let’s eat pizza, then sleep. Pizza.”

At my words, Koko raised her arms again. Lying down like that, she looked like she was doing some kind of exercise.

“Next time we go, we should think about more comfortable transportation.”

“When I become a college student, we could take turns driving.”

“That sounds good.”

Kagami responded to my suggestion with a laugh in her voice.

“…”

And then we were silent for a moment.

“Let’s order before we fall asleep.”

“Good idea.”

As I got up, Kagami also rose from her spot.

Koko had fallen asleep in the meantime. Actually, she had been sleeping in the car the whole time too.

Well, she’ll wake up when she smells the pizza anyway, so I’ll just leave her be.

*

Before the pizza arrived, we looked at the photos we’d taken.

About an hour and a half of footage on the camcorder. And twelve disposable cameras with twenty-seven exposures each.

We took nearly 500 photos with the digital camera we bought in Kyoto.

In other words, we pressed the shutter at every opportunity. The time recorded on the camcorder doesn’t seem like much at first glance, but most of the videos are less than a minute long. That means we recorded at least 90 videos, which sounds a bit ridiculous even to me.

We had developed about half of the disposable camera photos, but six cameras still had film inside.

Among the developed photos… honestly, there were some that were really badly taken, and some that were blurry because we didn’t maintain the minimum distance.

But they were good just as they were. Rather, having those carelessly taken photos mixed in made it clear that we really had a great time.

Koko, who had been sleeping but woke up to the rustling sounds, saw the photos spread out and somehow ended up wedged between Kagami and me, intently examining the pictures.

“We can’t throw away a single one, can we?”

Including the failed shots. Kagami seemed to be thinking the same thing as me.

“Yeah, I really can’t bear to throw any away.”

In a sense, this was our first family trip.

Being our first trip, we probably took more excited, random photos because of that. But that was enough. Our photos wouldn’t end here anyway.

“We bought a digital camera too. You’ll come to the next sports festival, right?”

“Of course. Actually, I’ve been researching how to pack lunch boxes since before we went on the trip.”

You do know the sports festival is still months away, right?

Well, if we waited until that day to prepare lunch boxes, it would be incredibly hectic.

“We should buy an album first.”

I’m planning to properly store the film, but since we’ve printed the photos, we should preserve them properly.

The same goes for the digital camera photos. Data is actually quite unstable, and if you don’t physically print them out, you might lose everything without even noticing.

Having captured these traces of time, I didn’t want to lose them.

As we were looking through the photos for a while, there was a knock, knock, knock at the door.

Kagami had ordered two pizzas, probably considering Koko’s appetite. One pizza would be enough for Kagami and me, but Koko might eat more than half a pizza.

Kagami’s prediction was spot on, and the two pizzas disappeared completely. It wasn’t surprising that Koko ate one whole pizza and a few more slices.

Where does all that food go?

…Since I have a similar body to Koko now, does that mean I could eat that much too?

But I didn’t particularly want to test it out.

I do care about my figure, despite how it might seem.

*

We spent the rest of the vacation relaxing at home.

We bought a DVD player and attached it to the TV, then rented a bunch of DVDs from the rental shop to watch movies.

Koko liked flashy movies. She preferred action movies with lots of spectacular explosions, or animations with many special effects.

Kagami… well, it seemed like she didn’t have movie preferences at all.

More precisely, she gave the impression of visiting a rental shop for the first time.

Seeing her standing there blankly, not knowing what to do in the rental shop, I thought, how can a person be like that? But I refrained from saying anything.

If you’re not used to watching movies from childhood, you tend not to watch them as an adult either. Kagami must be that type.

I had occasionally seen her blankly watching videos on TV, but that was just her watching movies that Koko had put on. And Koko wasn’t the type to watch a movie from beginning to end anyway.

Anyway, I rented a bunch of movies that were quite old by my standards—but still considered new releases in this world.

Koko and Kagami surprisingly focused on watching the movies.

Well, it was more like they followed my lead since I was watching intently.

Kagami’s taste… hmm.

Romance movies didn’t seem to suit her. Her life had been quite far removed from “romance.” She doesn’t seem to want to find a partner even now, and doesn’t even seem to have fantasies about it. Well, having done that kind of work, she must have seen all sorts of people.

She seemed to watch action movies with moderate interest, but didn’t appear to be extremely entertained. You know those people who watch superhero movies and say, “It’s too unrealistic, I can’t relate, it’s not interesting”? She had that kind of expression.

Perhaps the events we experienced were on a larger scale than most action movies. Though they were quite bizarre.

I didn’t choose thrillers or horror movies because I don’t particularly like them.

I saw a hint of her preferences in animation.

While Kagami showed little interest in animated movies featuring princesses, she showed quite a bit of interest in animations with the keyword “family.”

Ah, I see.

She had said that family was what she wanted most.

And she had also said she wanted to eat hamburgers with us on our trip because of an advertisement she saw on TV.

When returning the movies we’d watched, I rented a bunch of family movies this time. Some were funny, and some were a bit sad.

Of course, with family as the keyword, the central emotion running through most of them was “touching.”

My choice worked almost perfectly, and,

“…Sniff.”

I finally succeeded in making Kagami sniffle.

“Sniff.”

Koko too.

And the two of them hugged me tightly from both sides while sniffling, so I had to endure the discomfort of the position rather than feeling the emotion of the movie.

Should I call this satisfying?

Well, let’s just say I succeeded and leave it at that.

*

After the third semester ends, I’ll naturally become a second-year student.

Strictly speaking, by early April, I still won’t have been in this world for a full year, but in my heart, I feel like it’s been a year.

Well, what does it matter? It’s okay to count a couple of weeks short.

I waved goodbye to Kagami who had come to see us off at the front of the house, and walked leisurely with Koko.

This road felt so long when I first walked it.

A 30-minute walk to the train station—common sense would dictate taking a bus for such a distance. I chose to walk just to save a little on living expenses.

But at some point, I started to enjoy walking here.

Probably from when I started walking with Koko.

Even places that are boring and uninteresting when you’re alone become enjoyable times when you walk with someone you like and get along with.

Even if you don’t have much conversation while walking.

The train was still crowded.

There are many students who commute by train besides us. Since many schools have the same opening day, the number of commuting office workers plus the number of students naturally makes it this crowded.

After an hour’s ride, we arrived at the station.

“Hello.”

As always, we met Yuka.

Koko and I waved. Koko was especially happy to see Yuka. Since the only time she saw Yuka during the entire vacation was when we picked up Kuro, it was natural to be excited.

“I’m a bit nervous.”

Yuka said as she walked beside me.

“Nervous?”

Is it because the new semester is starting?

Hmm, I think this is the first time Yuka has mentioned being nervous about going to school.

“Our classes are decided today.”

“Ah, I see.”

I nodded.

That made sense. Yuka had been in a different class from me until now.

We were in adjacent classes so we could meet whenever we wanted, and we were in the same club, so we weren’t really that far apart.

But still, there’s a big difference between being in the same class and not.

Yuka’s words made me nervous too.

Does this mean Koko and I might be separated?

Well, if the teacher’s blood is red, that probably won’t happen, but there’s a good chance I could be separated from Mako, Harumi, or Yuu.

And naturally, I didn’t want to be separated from any of them. They’re all close friends.

“Right? It makes you nervous, doesn’t it?”

“…Yeah.”

“Woo?”

When I answered with a slightly nervous voice, Koko tilted her head.

*

I’m not sure how class assignments are announced in the 2020s. I didn’t graduate from high school in that era.

Maybe they send it by text message or something?

Actually, I don’t remember clearly how it was done when I was young either, but at this school, they post a huge list of student names and classes.

In my class—

Me, Mako, Harumi, and Yuu were all there.

Plus Yuka.

And Koko, of course.

“Yes!”

Yuka cheered, hugged Koko and me tightly, and started jumping up and down.

“Wha?”

Koko seemed a bit confused about why Yuka was suddenly acting this way, but soon she seemed to be swept up in Yuka’s joyful cheering and raised both arms with an “Wha!”

Around us, there were sighs and cheers simultaneously, though not as intense as ours. It’s probably rare for friends to be as lucky as we were to end up in the same class.

Did Ms. Suzuki pay special attention to my mental care? Or did our grades just happen to align perfectly? I’m not sure, but with such a good result, I can’t complain.

The three of us walked to our classroom with somewhat lighter steps.

We were early. The Mako trio wasn’t visible yet.

Instead.

“…Sasaki?”

I spotted a male student sitting in the corner of the classroom, in the so-called “protagonist seat.”

“Oh, hi.”

Souta Sasaki, making eye contact with us, smiled a bit awkwardly and raised his hand.

Ah, that’s right. I hadn’t thought to check, so I didn’t know we were in the same class.

I never expected Sasaki to be in our class too.

Hmm… how should I feel about this? Happy? It wasn’t the kind of joy that would make me jump around like Yuka or my other friends, but I was happy nonetheless.

I wasn’t sure what to say. Um, let’s get along well?

As I was choosing my words, the back door burst open.

“Souta!”

The person who opened the door shouted extremely loudly and then dashed toward us.

And then almost pounced on Sasaki, hugging him.

“Souta! I’m so glad! So glad!”

Seeing the tears streaming from both eyes, I wondered if she had heard news that Sasaki had been in a traffic accident this morning, but that probably wasn’t it.

More likely, she was just expressing her joy at being in the same class, albeit a bit intensely.

Yes. The one hugging Souta was Nakahara.

Nanami Nakahara. Souta’s childhood friend.

What the…

The number of acquaintances in our class is increasing at an uncanny rate.

Is Ms. Suzuki’s influence stronger than I thought? Is she perhaps the principal’s daughter or something? I don’t recall reading such a setting in the novel.

“Um, Nanami. Right now is a bit…”

“Ah, yes!”

Nanami wiped her tears and jumped up at Sasaki’s words.

And only then did she realize we were near Sasaki, and she smiled brightly.

“Are you in the same class too?”

“Yeah… I guess so.”

At least I don’t have to awkwardly greet Sasaki now. Conversation itself isn’t that difficult, but sometimes greeting can be a bit challenging.

“Hehehe.”

Nakahara laughed sinisterly.

“Good, with this, I’ve won the competition against Hagiwara senpai.”

“…”

I seriously considered whether I should tell Shii about this or not.

If I don’t tell her, I’d be hiding the truth. I didn’t want to do that to Shii anymore. I had already hidden so much from her.

But if I tell her, her head might split with pain.

Would the best solution be for Shii to skip a grade and enter this school as a second-year student?

I looked toward the door just in case, then let out a small sigh.

Thank goodness. It doesn’t seem to be the case.

And it’s not like Kaoru or Izumi failed and ended up in our class either. At least that part seems to be proceeding normally.

“Let’s get along well from now on.”

Sasaki, finally coming to his senses, smiled brightly at us and said.

I nodded.

“Looking forward to it.”

Fortunately, Nakahara didn’t seem to mind us talking to Souta like this.

I guess she doesn’t see every girl as a rival.

It’s really fortunate that Souta isn’t a pheromone-type male protagonist.

“Kotone!”

I heard someone calling my name and turned to see Mako rushing toward me.

Mako hugged me tightly and started jumping up and down like Yuka had earlier.

“What’s this, you seem happier than when you found out we’re in the same class.”

“Ah.”

Harumi spoke from behind with an incredulous tone, and Mako’s face turned bright red.

“N-no, that’s not…”

“I’m kidding, just kidding.”

Seeing Mako’s face turn pale, Harumi said that while patting her back.

“We’re in the same class again. Let’s get along well for the next year.”

“Yeah.”

I nodded at Harumi’s words.

“…”

Yuu was behind them. When our eyes met, he slightly raised one hand. He didn’t react as openly happy as Harumi and Mako, but I knew this was his way of expressing emotion.

He’s just a bit awkward.

After that, the classroom gradually filled with students. Friends who met again greeted each other happily, gathering in groups and engaging in lively conversations.

A normal and pleasant atmosphere.

The classroom where we’ll spend the next year.

The front door of the classroom opened with a clatter, and Ms. Suzuki entered.

“Alright, everyone, please take your seats.”

Our eyes met as she spoke.

Ms. Suzuki gave me a slight smile.

“…”

I smiled back slightly, thinking.

That this year would truly be enjoyable.

A real “school life.”

Perhaps just like in those light novels from that time.