Epilogue April 30 (Saturday) Yuta Asamura

● Epilogue – April

30

Saturday

Asamura Yuta

The night was the same as always, time for my part-time job. But today was different from my usual shifts. It wasn’t just that it was Saturday, which meant more customers and more staff. It was that the extra staff were all approaching Ayase-san. In the office, there were greeting sweets that Ayase-san had brought, and it seemed everyone was using “I received this” as an excuse to strike up a conversation with her.

Until now, we hadn’t been on bad terms. However, during work hours, Ayase-san focused on her tasks and never initiated small talk.

If someone like Yomiuri-senpai engaged her, that would be one thing, but if everyone was serious about their work, conversations were unlikely to happen.

But today was her last day, and the staff were seizing every opportunity to say a word to Ayase-san.

Seeing her being loved and cherished by her colleagues stirred something warm deep within me.

You’ve worked hard, Ayase-san.

Yet, alongside that warm feeling, a dark sense of loneliness also began to rise.

Today would be the last day I could work alongside Ayase-san…

I had been informed of this a little while ago during dinner.

Aki Hiroka-san had decided to intern at her office…

She had always been interested in design, so it was a good thing that she had actively found something she wanted to pursue. So I smiled and said, “I’ll support you,” feeling affection as she shyly replied, “Thank you.”

There was not a hint of falsehood in that feeling. Yet, why was it that at this moment, I felt so unsettled?

It’s strange. We see each other every day at home.

Still, the time we spent together would definitely decrease compared to living together and working at the same part-time job.

I recalled the tragic love story that Nakamura had shared at university.

As time spent together dwindled, the girlfriend met a new guy in a community she didn’t belong to, and before she knew it, they had grown close and she was taken away. Nakamura said it was now a classic joke, but I couldn’t bring myself to laugh.

My father divorced after being cheated on. I have indirectly come to know the impermanence of human hearts and the sorrow of the betrayed. That’s why such stories always make my heart uneasy.

Ayase-san…

I believe that she wouldn’t act unfaithfully, at least not in her case.

University life. Internships. The experiences in this new world would surely be filled with excitement, tossing Ayase-san around like a thrill ride. She is a curious person. Deep down, she desires flashy experiences rather than slow-moving attractions.

I wonder if reducing contact time will cool our feelings. Just like Nakamura’s ex-girlfriend.

Well, Tsukimiya is a women’s university, so it should be fine… No, there will be men at the internship. There will be plenty of opportunities to meet new people.

…This feeling isn’t good.

Self-questioning can lead to accidents. Positive self-reflection is one thing, but negative thoughts can break the heart.

Reminding myself of that, I decided to divert my gaze from Ayase-san, surrounded by staff who were bidding her farewell, and focus on my work.

Special days pass in the blink of an eye. Before I knew it, it was midnight, time to clock out. After doing a final check of the store, cleaning up, and closing the register, I changed clothes and returned to the office, where the manager was waiting with a smile. He handed me a square object, and I nodded in silence as I accepted it. Then, I passed it to Ayase-san, who entered a little late, saying, “Thank you for your hard work.”

It was a farewell card signed by all the part-timers for Ayase-san.

Yomiuri-senpai had also stopped by after work to secretly write a message, and Kozono-san (who had already gone home since she was a high school student) had put a lot of effort into her message. Although, Kozono-san’s “I will definitely not lose” was a bit unclear as a farewell message.

Ayase-san hugged the card tightly to her chest, and with tears in her eyes, she managed to smile just like she did during customer service.

“Thank you very much.”

The last day of bookstore employee Ayase Saki had come to an end.

After the farewells, while the manager and the veteran part-timers chatted after closing, we left the store. Even if it was hard to part, we couldn’t linger. Even though we were university students, if we stayed out too long, our parents would worry.

As we stepped out into the late-night chaos…

Suddenly, I felt a hand grab me.

“Wait.”

“…Ayase-san?”

When I turned around, she was looking at me with an unreadable expression.

“I want to go somewhere.”

“At this hour? Um, where?”

Ayase-san thought for a moment and then said jokingly, “A pilgrimage to a holy site.”

The midnight street of Dougenzaka was indeed chaotic.

Seedy pick-up lines and drunken adults, the lights of shops that refused to go out even after midnight.

We had climbed a few steps of a building filled with various restaurants. On the landing, leaning against the railing, we looked down at the lewd and cluttered streets.

I glanced at Ayase-san’s profile. It strongly reminded me of a “younger sister.”

Recently, I had been more aware of her as a “girlfriend,” so it felt like a long time since I had thought of her as a “younger sister.”

Why was I suddenly thinking of her as a “younger sister”? There was a reason.

“It’s nostalgic here,” she said, squinting her eyes.

Even amidst the dazzling city lights, she never got lost in them.

Golden hair and eyes filled with strong will. A posture that exuded confidence. She had a presence that seemed capable of swimming strongly in any world.

And yet, I felt that we could share the same values, a miraculous encounter.

“Yeah… This is where we first met.”

Yes, this place.

At the family restaurant at the top of these stairs, I had met my father, Ayase-san, and my stepmother Akiko for the first time.

And it was on this landing that we made our agreement.

Let’s not expect too much from each other.

“That day, my new life began. The happiest moment of my life.”

“Same here. For me too.”

“And I think that’s because we were able to properly align our expectations.”

“Indeed. It was because we aligned our expectations here that we could live together with the same values afterward.”

The proposal of a relationship akin to a contract might have been something that could scare the other person away.

For her, it was a communication of confirmation that she dared to take the risk of being disliked.

If I touched her and she didn’t mind, that was good. If she did mind, I could just apologize.

It was a courageous step.

Thanks to her courage, our sibling life became comfortable. In a way, I had been riding on that courage.

I understood. This relationship, where we tried to articulate everything and align our expectations, was something that had come after overcoming the risk of being disliked.

“So,” she said, looking into my eyes.

The next words were hard to come by. As if searching for words, her beautiful gaze shifted between my eyes and slightly to the right, back and forth.

Until now, I would have waited. I would have waited as long as it took for her to find the words.

I thought it was rude to steal someone else’s words or to speak on their behalf without permission.

But if we were to create a new life together…

“Do you want to align our values? A significant value that will impact our future lives. Just one.”

“…!”

As I resolved to take the words from her, Ayase-san’s eyes widened.

Then she nodded repeatedly.

“Yes! That’s right!”

And she leaned in closer, her breath slightly disheveled with excitement.

“Consultation about having children!”

“…!”

Now it was my turn to widen my eyes.

Then she quickly realized, “Oh, no, I missed the subject, no, the modifiers are missing…” and blushed as she tried to explain.

“Anyway, it’s different. You see, the other day, my mother asked me about having children.”

“Ah, yeah, that’s right.”

She had said she didn’t want us to hold back on what we wanted to do because of that.

From the flow and atmosphere of the conversation, it seemed that Akiko might have noticed the relationship between me and Ayase-san.

“After that, my mother told me, ‘In just two years, I’ll reach the age when I was pregnant with you.’ So, surely in the not-so-distant future, I will bring someone important to me.”

After being asked about having children, Akiko had called Ayase-san aside, but I wondered if they had talked about that then.

“And no matter who that person is, my mother and… Taichi and my father will definitely bless it.”

“That clearly means they are aware of me, right?”

“Yeah. It was probably obvious.”

Ayase-san said with self-deprecation.

“But honestly, when I tried to confess, ‘The person is Asamura-kun,’ I was interrupted. Oh, I’m sorry for trying to reveal it impulsively without prior consultation. But at that moment, I felt like I had to say it.”

“That’s fine. Honestly, I felt like I was already being figured out.”

What I was concerned about wasn’t that.

“Why did Akiko interrupt? Is it that she doesn’t want to hear it yet?”

I sensed it, but I didn’t want to confirm it.

I thought that, but Ayase-san immediately denied it.

“No, it wasn’t that kind of atmosphere. It was just… ‘Please cherish the time you have now and slowly nurture your love.'”

I pondered over what Ayase-san had said about Akiko’s actions. Below the railing, many people were passing by, almost colliding with each other. Some of them might have been drinking at the shop where Akiko worked.

Just as Ayase-san and I had started university and made new friends, people’s lives undergo significant turning points every few years. Changes happen as often as there are people, and Akiko, who had been working in Shibuya for a long time, must have experienced the turnover of people visiting Shibuya and her shop many times.

Change is the way of the world, isn’t it?

Perhaps Akiko felt that forcing us to confess here might bind us in the opposite way.

As a mother, what she hoped for us wasn’t to be happy as lovers.

It was for us to be free and happy without being bound by anything.

What happens in a romantic relationship is unpredictable. No matter how happy it seems, people can drift apart or break up over trivial misunderstandings.

That was true for my father and my biological mother, and it was the same for Akiko and Ito Fumiya.

So if we were to confess our relationship at this moment, without the intention of getting married, we would have to report it awkwardly if we ended up breaking up. In that case, I would prefer that we only share that important decision when we have truly made a significant choice after nurturing our relationship. That must be what it is.

When I voiced that hypothesis, she nodded immediately, as if she shared the same thought.

“We should cherish and nurture our relationship. But…”

“But?”

Her tone was oddly hesitant.

Looking at Ayase-san’s profile, there was no longer the coldness of the day we first met, but rather a softness, and it was hard to tell if the redness in her face was due to the reflection of the traffic lights or something else.

“Today is the last day we work at the same part-time job.”

“Yeah, that’s true.”

“I think our life rhythms will gradually diverge due to university courses and work schedules.”

“That will probably happen.”

“I think the time we can spend together will decrease.”

“Since we live in the same house… I can’t really think of it that way.”

“…Yeah.”

During her sensitive middle and high school years, Ayase-san experienced a life of misalignment with her mother.

Even if they lived in the same house, if their life rhythms were completely opposite, it was possible they wouldn’t see each other much, and she knew that.

“To be honest, I’m a little anxious.

It’s not that I don’t trust Asamura-kun or anything like that, I think. But, you know, the relationship where we are both siblings and lovers is still ambiguous, defined yet undefined. If we communicate and confirm it every day, we won’t lose sight of it, but if that time decreases, I feel like it might naturally fade away.”

I was surprised. Ayase-san felt a similar anxiety to mine.

I hadn’t considered that it might stem from the ambiguity of our relationship.

‘If you dislike it, I’m sorry. But that’s not the end of it. After all, she’s my girlfriend.’

I recalled Nakamura’s words.

I couldn’t say I fully accepted that way of thinking. Deep down, I hadn’t accepted it. That was the beginning of prejudice. I believed that just because she was my girlfriend, it didn’t mean it was okay to label her as something else.

Ayase Saki is Ayase Saki, and it would be unthinkable to label her as something else.

But indeed, there was some truth in what Ayase-san said.

People are bound by definitions. When something is explained as being a certain way, they skip all complicated thoughts and recognize it, and even if it changes slightly, they can no longer see it as something different, lumping everything similar together. I had always avoided such stereotypes, and Ayase-san had disliked them too. However, being bound by definitions and trapped by prejudices seems to be a human instinct, and because it bypasses complicated thought processes, it becomes stable, fast, and low-cost, making it easier to sustain.

Younger sister or girlfriend.

To clarify, so that it would never waver.

“I will no longer call you ‘brother,’ so when you call me Saki, please don’t call me that as a younger sister.”

Like the promise we made that day, she—Saki, who would now simply be my girlfriend—said that.

“Is that the significant value you want to align?”

When I asked, Saki nodded.

“How about it? …Yuta.”

“I…”

I turned my body to face Saki directly.

The chaotic streets of Dougenzaka.

Even bathed in light, she maintained her noble contours, yet the thorns that seemed painful to touch were merely a façade, soft like a stuffed animal that could be crushed with just a fingertip. She was generous enough to accept even the most pathetic of appearances.

I realized that my expressions about her had become richer than before.

It was precisely because we were in the same place that I understood.

The Saki I was seeing now was far more three-dimensional than the one I had seen that day.

Ah, so this is how it should be.

If I had defined her that day, I would have spent my life never seeing the three-dimensionality of “Ayase Saki.”

But now, even if I define something a little, I won’t lose sight of it.

“I want a clear definition too.”

“Yūta…”

“…!”

For a brief moment, she gasped in surprise.

It was because my hand had touched her neck.

My hand had naturally reached out, drawn in as if by a magnet. Feeling her hair against the back of my hand, I touched her neck, then moved up to her cheek as if confirming her shape and body temperature.

Am I scaring her? Should I apologize?

I cautiously looked into her eyes.

“Ah…”

And then, for the first time, I understood. For the first time, I experienced what it meant to say “OK” without words.

She covered my hand, which was touching her cheek, with her own hand from above.

Sandwiched between the warmth of her cheek and the warmth of her hand, heat began to swell, spreading not just to my hand but through my veins to my entire body.

What I would not do with my sister, I would do with my lover.

To define our relationship, to make the existence of Yūta and Saki something certain.

“Is that alright?”

“…It’s fine.”

The overlapping warmth felt like it could scorch even the heat of the entertainment district, as the light, sounds, and shadows of Dōgenzaka quietly melted away at the edges of our wordless world.