Bloom Into You: Regarding Saeki Sayaka Volume 3
Table of Contents
Color Gallery
Table of Contents Page
Copyrights and Credits
Title Page
Moored Ship
The Clear Sea
Setting Sail
The Stars Waver
Afterword
Newsletter
Moored Ship
“I PROCESS THINGS QUICKLY,” she said.
The face that stared back at me wore a slightly different expression from the pleasant smile I’d grown accustomed to seeing. Something glossy, like droplets of water, inched down her obviously blushing cheeks.
“Process?” I asked, holding back the slight bewilderment that crept over me.
“That’s right. I guess you could say I’m practical or that I don’t lose sleep over things I can’t control.”
A shadow came over her face again. It was as though the sun had set, and something dark was reaching out from afar.
“I’m never angry or sad for long. I can’t do it, even if I try. It hurts when your feelings don’t mesh with someone else’s and things don’t go over well. It hurts, a lot. But it’s like my heart dries up fast. It’s the same for anger—I can’t be angry at a person for more than thirty minutes.”
I supposed thirty minutes really wasn’t very long. Personally, I could stay angry for a whole year, or even two.
“I feel like morning turns to night faster for me than other people,” she continued. “Plus, people keep telling me that I walk too fast.”
“I don’t know if that one’s connected…”
She might simply be an impatient person. Still, I did envy how quickly she could switch gears. I was the kind of person who lingered and drew things out, which created the best conditions for regrets.
There wasn’t even a table between us; we were very, very close. Close enough that, had she sunk down slightly, we would have practically been on top of each other. Close enough that I could swear I heard the creaking of her bones as she placed a hand on the floor.
“That’s why, even though my eyes were following someone else a little while ago, they’re only looking at you now, Sayaka-senpai.”
Sure enough, her chestnut eyes were fixed on me directly. I did my best not to react to what had practically been a confession of love. Since I was the older one—her upperclassman—I felt a certain degree of pride and stubbornness, as though I had to make sure I wasn’t the one who gave in first.
“That’s what you’d call being on the verge of love,” I said. I’d felt it before, and knew what it was, though it felt a little arrogant to say so when I was the apparent object of such affections.
“Well, I guess that might be what it ends up being. But that’s just, I dunno…so blunt.”
This close, it was difficult to avoid her gaze. Every time we spoke, the passion in our voices rose, and I felt it getting harder to breathe.
“Well, I just can’t help it. You’re just so amazingly…amazing to me.”
That vocabulary was enough to make me worry about her grades. Maybe this was proof I shouldn’t be getting involved with an underclassman?
“If I had to say what I like best about you, uh, it’d be your face,” she continued. “Your face is just the best.” Suddenly bashful, she closed her eyes, as though trying to conceal how her nose was turning red.
“Thanks…” I had to admit her fidgeting was adorable. “I can understand that.”
Appearances may not be everything, but they’re important. I considered it more sincere to compliment a person’s appearance when you didn’t know them very well, rather than pretend to know their inner thoughts.
In return, I evaluated her with the same sincerity she’d given me. She was looking straight at me, head-on. She always had, since the moment we first met. I appreciated that for the privilege it was, but there was something I was wondering about.
“When you said that your emotions don’t last long—does that include things you enjoy?”
And does that include when you love someone?
“It might.” Was the hint of loneliness in her mellow voice because she had an inkling of what might be to come? The shadow over her face deepened. “And since it might not last long, I thought I should say it now.”
In that moment, it was like she became my shadow itself. If we were stars, we would have drawn too close—close enough that both of us might be destroyed. There was a fervor layered over her face and voice that I had never seen in her before.
“Because, right now, I’ve fallen for you,” she said.
And so, it was partway through my second year in college that a girl confessed her love to me.
How long had it been since I last had such an encounter?
The Clear Sea
>>I’VE BEEN JUMPING and hopping around lately.
>Seems good for your health.
>>I hurt all over… But it’s fun. I kind of feel like it’s a luxury that I have an opportunity to become someone other than myself.
>Actors sure are something. I don’t think I could ever do that—become someone else, I mean. Not unless something drastic happened.
>>But you’ve been on stage, too, Sayaka.
>That was…just me. I felt like I was starring in the play as myself.
>>If you could pull off the role like that, that’s impressive in its own way. I’d like to do something like that again someday.
>Right. Someday.
>>Yeah, someday.
I was a second year, and she was a first year. I don’t say this as a point of pride, just to explain why, when our eyes met, she gave me a nod but still kept her distance. Tracking my gaze, the friend sitting across from me asked, “Sayaka, is she a friend of yours?”
“Yes. She’s a first year, though.”
“Aw, she could have just come over anyway… Well, okay, maybe not.” My friend changed her mind mid-sentence, probably remembering her own days as a first year. It was harder to guess everyone’s ages without uniforms to mark their grades, and as a first year, everyone around you looked older. You felt out of place no matter where you went on campus.
“Next time we see her try to run off, let’s catch her.”
“Catch her?” I gave a strained smile. My friend’s uninhibited manner reminded me of someone from my high school days.
“Erm, what’s her name?”
“Edamoto-san.”
Edamoto Haru. I had yet to call my college underclassman by her first name.
Spring was scorching, the air shifting to a faint ochre color. Though our table at the open café sat under the shade of a parasol, it was still hot. The shadows of the pedestrians flowing past us were lengthening. I watched those shadows overlap for a while as the silence stretched and my friend’s eyelids grew heavy.
“I’m sleepy,” she grumbled lazily. She slumped down as if she had no intention of attempting to revive herself. “I really just shouldn’t eat lunch. It makes it impossible to function after.”
“But going hungry would make it hard to function, too,” I said.
My friend pinched the end of her straw, unneeded now that she’d finished her drink. “I guess. It’s a lose-lose situation.”
“That’s too bad.”
“I give up. I’m going home.” My friend pushed off the table to stand up, suddenly energetic, as though she’d forgotten all about being tired.
“What about class?” I asked.
“It’ll be fine. Skipping once isn’t so bad.”
“This is your third time.”
“If you don’t add them all up, it’s just three separate ones.”
I rolled my ey
es at this illogical attempt to justify herself. Well, it didn’t affect me, so I supposed I didn’t care. My past self probably wouldn’t have forgiven others for being so flippant. I wasn’t sure whether I’d become more accepting or just too lenient.
We left the protection of the parasol, the sun beating down upon our heads. The summer of my twentieth year awaited me under that intense sunlight. At times, my high school days felt like a far-off dream, while other times it was like they had just happened yesterday.
I parted from my friend, who really was heading out through the main gate, and then blended into the flow of people going to the lecture building. When I looked at the sea of students and professors around me, each focused on their own goals and own thoughts, I felt strangely restless. I felt the world milling around me in the way one might be aware of the blood circulating throughout your body.
Someone once said that college is the best place to find something. That something could be your future career, future relationships, or even the truth of your own laziness…for better or worse. My friend, who fled from lectures, might have found something other than scholarship in college.
I hadn’t found anything concrete in my first year. What about my second? What might I find?
I looked to the skies, as though seeking something hidden beyond the dazzling light.
The next day, I happened to see Edamoto-san again in transit. My eyes met hers beyond the glass of a co-op store I passed, where she was standing before the register. In that moment, it was like the corners of her mouth and her tied-up hair both sprung up in greeting.
Still holding her wallet in her hand, she forcefully held up her palm toward me. Then, after looking around indecisively, she lowered the hand and the shopping basket it contained with a grunt. It seemed heavy. She was clearly in the middle of paying; why not just finish that up instead of getting so excited? The employee serving her seemed bewildered, too.
After Edamoto-san finished paying, chattering all the while, she rushed out of the store with such force that I feared she might drop her wallet, her purchases, and her bag all at once. There’s no need to rush, I thought automatically. As I silently waited for her to reach me, the sun passed behind the clouds. A strong wind ruffled the banner in front of the co-op, snapping it loud enough to reach my ears.
“It’s hard to signal someone that you want them to wait a sec, isn’t it?” she said awkwardly, with a bashful smile.
I couldn’t help smiling back at her. “It is. I didn’t understand in the least.”
“Aw, I knew it. Hmm, but you waited anyway, so I guess it’s fine.”
Edamoto-san put her wallet away and came up next to me, and we resumed walking in the same direction. I watched the way she walked: not with a stoop but with a slight pitch forward.
Edamoto Haru. A first-year college student, one year younger than me. She was petite, and her short ponytail would bounce charmingly like the tip of a brush when she walked. The corners of her eyes were slightly raised, like a cat’s—but when those eyes met mine, she would give me a cheerful smile, so she was much clearer and more forthright about intentions than any cat I’d even known.
When she faced forward, her ponytail and exposed ears gave her the sharp profile of a young boy, but when she turned toward you, her femininity was immediately apparent. It was both strange and novel to me to be around someone with such distinctly visual shifts in mood. She was always a touch too loud, and walked quickly, as though she hated to stop. She came to my side like this whenever she saw me, cheerfully, without a hint of hesitation.
“So, Edamoto-san…”
“You can call me Haru.”
“Edamoto-san.”
“You’re so stubborn.” Despite my evasion, her smile was untarnished. “So, what were you gonna say?”
“It seems like you’re following me. Don’t you have somewhere else to be?”
“I don’t have afternoon lectures today, so I’m headed where I want to go. Right over here!”
She smiled and pointed ahead. I suspected that if I had walked in the opposite direction, she would have found a destination that way instead.
“There’s a gate if we walk in this direction, too.”
“Yes, there is.”
“Though this is sort of a roundabout way to get back to my room.”
“To what room?”
“To my apartment. It just seemed confusing to call it my ‘house’.”
My eyes went round with surprise at that. “You live alone?”
“Yup. Since my parents’ house is pretty far away.”
Edamoto-san lifted up her co-op shopping bag. I could see a carton of milk through the thin plastic. We had headed home from campus together in the past, but when I thought about it, I realized that Edamoto-san had always parted ways with me before we reached the station.
“Sayaka-senpai, you commute from your parents’ place, right?”
“Yes.” I already had experience commuting to school by train in my junior high years, so I was used to it. Now that I thought about it, I’d never lived away from home. I was too used to a world where my family, cats, and a room with a familiar ceiling to look up at were ever-present. Just as a creature adapted to aquatic life couldn’t come up onto land, leaving that familiar world behind was beyond me.
For some reason, I found myself thinking of a close friend of mine, who had left home quite naturally and started walking her own path.
We walked between the trees and buildings, passing several lecture halls. I’d been here an entire year, but every face we passed was unfamiliar to me. Unlike high school, the relationships that formed in college spanned frameworks and categories. Just like how I was currently walking with an underclassman, a year younger than me, whom I’d met by chance.
It was news to me that Edamoto-san was living away from home. There was still so much I didn’t know about her. I hadn’t even asked her why she’d been crying when I first met her, nor had I seen her cry again since then. I felt some belated curiosity stir within me but got the sense this wasn’t a good time to bring it up.
“Is your apartment close by?” I asked.
“Of course. That’s why I selected it.”
True enough.
“Why don’t you come visit sometime, Sayaka-senpai? We can have tea and, umm…” Edamoto-san glanced at her shopping bag. “…I can offer you some bean sprouts.”
“That’s a pairing I’ve never tried before.” I attempted to picture myself eating bean sprouts between sips of tea, but my imagination wasn’t up to the task. “Someday.”
“Someday, huh,” Edamoto-san snorted out a soundless laugh. “I kind of feel like an adult just made me an empty promise.”
With that, she looked up at me as if she was rather amused.
Since my parents were the type of people who would never give promises they couldn’t make good on, I didn’t know how that felt.
We were just talking about hanging out for a bit at a friend’s house. I was probably taking it too seriously.
I knew that, but I still felt intimidated by the thought. Was it because of my inexperience or just my very nature? Going to visit another girl’s house held no small significance for the person named Saeki Sayaka.
It wasn’t as though I felt those sorts of emotions toward Edamoto-san, of course.
Still, if our relationship deepened… But how deep exactly does a friendship go? And should I really describe it as “deepening,” rather than “building up” a relationship?
After all, going deeper meant that you were sinking.
Once we got to the lecture hall that I had been heading toward, I parted ways with Edamoto-san.
Edamoto-san shifted her weight restlessly and shot me a sly smile.
“Although if you were a bad girl, I would just invite you to hang out right now, Sayaka-senpai.”
“A ‘bad girl’?” Bemused by the expression, I tried taking the opposite approach. “Why, do I look like a good girl?”
 
; “Very much so.”
“You don’t have much of an eye for things, then.”
I meant that sincerely, but Edamoto-san seemed to take it as a joke and kept on smiling.
Right before going through the door, I turned around to find Edamoto-san waving at me wildly from a distance. I wondered what she would have done if I hadn’t turned around—it would have become a very sad affair.
“She’s an odd one…” I muttered, but waved my hand demurely at her.
Edamoto-san seemed satisfied to have gotten a response. She turned away and jogged towards the gate, her shopping bag theatrically bouncing along up and down with her. As I wondered whether she should be more concerned about that, I watched her until I could no longer see the movement of her ponytail.
Once I got into the second-floor lecture room, I took a seat near the center and exhaled.
Though it wasn’t to the point it was actually tiring, spending time with Edamoto-san felt like I was being drawn into leaping and jumping along with her. Her movements were always on the exaggerated side, and she seemed to be not only bursting with energy but full of too many emotions entirely. I had never dealt with a personality like hers before.
“Although, if I had to compare her to someone…”
An old face I’d nearly forgotten resurfaced in my mind as if I’d tugged on a thread.
Relationships were a mess of strange stimuli.
In the interval before the lecture started, I thought for a while about Edamoto-san and the past.
At the very least, it seemed that I wouldn’t forget her name or what she looked like.
>>Sayaka-senpai.
>>Are you at school right now?
>I am.
>>Have you had lunch?
>>Do you have any plans?
>None in particular.
>>Come eat with me!
>>Will you?
>Sure.
>Are you also at school, Edamoto-san?