Ch.358IF Side Story: Seems I’ve Arrived a Bit Early (55)

It feels a bit awkward.

The distance from where I fell to my house wasn’t that far. My leg hurt a little, but I wasn’t sure if Souta needed to support me like this.

Besides, even though we were going in the same direction, I hadn’t even realized that Souta and I had been heading the same way for about a week.

Souta is about half a head taller than me. Naturally, proportionally speaking, his legs were likely a bit longer than mine.

Yet Souta had been walking slower than me.

“……”

I don’t think Souta was suspiciously following me or anything. I can somewhat understand the psychology behind it.

When you run into a close friend on the street, you happily greet them, but when you encounter someone you only vaguely know, it’s awkward. Yet it feels strange not to walk together if you’re going in the same direction.

So instead, you don’t say anything and slow your pace to keep some distance. I’ve never done that with friends, but I used to do it when I spotted a teacher walking ahead of me.

Then when I fell, he must have rushed over.

“……”

“……”

Hmm.

It’s about a five-minute walk from here to my house.

Not talking at all feels awkward, especially since he helped me.

“If you live nearby, you must have seen me going this way a few times.”

“Huh? Oh, yeah. Um, sorry.”

“…Why?”

“Huh?”

“There’s nothing to be sorry about.”

I tilted my head as I spoke.

“You didn’t need to go out of your way to talk to me.”

“Oh, right.”

Souta nodded at my words. His brow furrowed slightly as if he thought our conversation was a bit strange.

“……”

“……”

“I’ll wash your handkerchief and return it.”

“Oh, no. It’s fine. I have plenty.”

Is he just giving it to me?

I’m not sure if that’s normal or not, but somehow it didn’t seem strange for a kind and shy person to say something like that.

“…Did you transfer schools too?”

“Huh?”

Souta blinked at my question.

“It just seems that way.”

I mumbled, trailing off. I felt bad about directly saying he seemed like an outsider.

“Um… around the middle of the first semester.”

Maybe it’s the times we live in, or perhaps there have always been many kids like this.

Well, I’m not one to talk. I’ve transferred schools several times myself, though not by choice.

“I see.”

The conversation died again.

It was only a five-minute walk, but the way our conversation kept stalling suggested he was too awkward to speak properly.

Since it seemed like continuing to force conversation was making things more uncomfortable, I decided to just quietly accept his support.

*

Kagami’s expression when she saw me was, well…

In a word, it was a “question mark.”

If this scene were in a manga, there would probably be a “??????” floating above her speech bubble.

Come to think of it, though not intentionally, this was the first time I’d brought a boy home. It’s not like there weren’t boys in my class before, and I did get along with some of them.

More accurately, they were boys who hung out with friends of my friends and occasionally joined our group.

Since they were clearly just elementary school kids, I didn’t think much of it, and they never came to our house anyway—so yes, this was the first time Kagami had seen me bring a boy home.

“…Hmm.”

The situation was just as awkward for me.

Let’s set aside the fact that I fell. I’d fallen a few times before. When you run around with elementary school kids, your feet sometimes catch on stones.

I wasn’t the type to cry about it, and whenever I was running around, my friends were always there to help me up quickly. There was never an occasion for a boy to get involved.

But now…

After wondering what to say, I decided to just introduce him and send him on his way. Souta seemed increasingly uncomfortable anyway.

“This is Souta Sasaki.”

“Ah, hello.”

As if he’d been waiting for me to say his name, Souta quickly bowed to Kagami.

“Oh… hello.”

Kagami bowed to Souta as well.

Come to think of it, Kagami is also extremely attractive. When I was younger, she was simply a beautiful girl, and now she’s openly gorgeous. To be honest, it seems like her age got frozen at some point and she stopped aging.

And Kagami isn’t just pretty-faced. Her figure is excellent too. When we went to the beach and she wore a swimsuit, everyone stared—both women and men.

Isn’t that a bit too stimulating for an elementary school student? I was once a male elementary school student myself, so I know that at the age when boys start becoming aware of sexuality, women above a certain level of attractiveness all look pretty.

But even though Souta’s face was red, I couldn’t tell if it was from embarrassment or because of Kagami.

Actually, maybe there’s no way to distinguish between the two. It’s probably natural to feel shy when talking to an attractive woman you’re meeting for the first time.

And for some reason, I didn’t like it.

Why?

“…I fell on the way here.”

When Kagami looked at me again, I said that while slightly extending my leg.

Souta’s handkerchief was still tied around my knee.

Perhaps the wound was a bit worse than I thought, as a pinkish color was gradually becoming visible through it. Maybe blood that wasn’t flowing at first was slowly seeping out.

“Oh my!”

Only then did Kagami startle and quickly approach me.

She knelt down and examined my leg.

I didn’t think it was something to be so alarmed about—but that thought vanished when I saw Kagami’s face looking up at me.

An expression of pure concern.

Just seeing that face made the pain seem to disappear.

“Are you okay? Does it hurt a lot?”

“I’m fine.”

I shook my head in response to Kagami’s question.

Kagami looked at my leg with genuine distress, then seemed to realize that Souta was the one who had tied the handkerchief.

She quickly stood up and gave a slight bow toward Souta.

“Thank you so much, Sasaki-kun.”

“Oh, it’s nothing.”

Souta was now openly embarrassed.

My eyes narrowed without me realizing it.

I unconsciously grabbed the hem of Kagami’s clothes, then flinched in surprise.

What am I doing?

Souta has quite handsome features. Of course, he’s still too young, so it’ll take a few more years to see how he develops, but compared to other kids his age, he was good-looking.

Has my standard of beauty become childlike too? It seems a bit ridiculous to think that way about an elementary school student.

…

But why do I feel so uneasy?

“Would you like to come in for a snack before you go?”

“No, no!”

Souta quickly exclaimed in response to Kagami’s offer.

“I, I’ve troubled you enough!”

He shouted while deeply bowing, and then—

“Oh my.”

Before Kagami could respond, Souta turned and ran away at full speed.

His slightly long, shaggy hair bounced up and down vigorously as he fled.

“……”

Kagami watched his retreating figure with a slightly dazed expression, then asked,

“Um, Kotone. Did I do something wrong?”

Not particularly.

Kagami’s clothes didn’t reveal any skin at all.

The issue was the silhouette visible even through those loose clothes.

When I shook my head, Kagami stroked my hair and gently took my hand.

“Shall we go inside and put some medicine on that?”

“Yes.”

My mood completely lifted again at Kagami’s words.

I’m strange. At least, I’m not normal like other kids. I have the ability to survive and come back to life even after losing a lot of blood in dangerous situations.

This wound will definitely disappear without a trace by the end of today.

But Kagami doesn’t just say “so it’s fine” and leave it at that. She takes care of me as much as possible, treating me like a normal child, like a daughter she truly cherishes.

I liked that about Kagami.

I knew it was completely genuine, having seen it throughout the years.

Holding Kagami’s hand lightly, I went inside.

She applied medicine to my knee wound and put a bandage on it—one with cartoon characters that elementary school students would use.

Then I ate the snack Kagami had prepared in advance, waited for “Dad” to come home, and had dinner.

At night—

“…Hehe.”

I went to Kagami’s room, hugging my pillow.

Since I’d already been sneaking into her bed every night, Kagami seemed to have given up on making me sleep separately.

But she didn’t dislike me for it. She just smiled at me like she was looking at an adorable daughter.

“What are we going to do when our daughter grows up?”

Kagami asked as she embraced me as if I were the most lovable being in the world.

“Even when I grow up, I’ll live with Mom.”

When I acted childishly in a way I never did when I was actually young, Kagami burst out laughing.

It was childish, but it was also sincere.

As long as Kagami didn’t mind, I wanted to live together for a long, long time.

Happily.

Normally.

These were the things I had decided to protect in this world.