Probably After Like 350 Pages
I KNEW THE WEEKEND was supposed to be for rest, but sometimes I wondered if I should do something more. Was everyone else my age in a stew of lethargy and teen angst, letting those feelings boil until they inevitably overflowed? Hino and Nagafuji obviously were, and I didn’t have any other benchmark.
For lack of anything better to do, that Sunday found me lying on the floor on my stomach. Yashiro and my sister lay on my back, creating a three-girl pile. To make matters worse, I was stuck; I could hear Yashiro snoring. When I felt my sister’s breaths turn slow and steady, I knew my turn would come next. I didn’t mind the feeling of their weight on my back, so although our floor wasn’t the most comfortable surface to sleep on, I decided it would do for now.
My mother walked by, carrying the laundry basket. When our eyes met, she burst out laughing. “Look at you, being such a good big sister.”
“Shrr am,” I replied, my face squished against the floor.
“Can I join?”
“No. I’d die.” If I hit her with a sarcastic “go for it,” chances were she actually would, so I made sure to leave no ambiguity in my refusal.
For the record, though, the pair on top of me weren’t that heavy. Yashiro in particular was uncannily light. Factoring in her bioluminescence and ability to fly, she was a strange little creature indeed. She couldn’t possibly have originated on this planet, yet she ate our food with gusto, took naps on us, smiled and laughed… Her veneer of childlike innocence let her get away with so much.
Personally, my perspective on her was somewhat uncertain: She was too small to be a peer, yet too distant to be a sister. In my mind, she was somewhere in the middle, and I couldn’t quite find the words to describe it. Perhaps Yashiro would only ever be Yashiro to me.
Listening to her and my sister’s rhythmic breaths, I closed my eyes and chased the remnants of light behind my eyelids. I wondered vaguely what Adachi was up to. Was every weekend a forty-eight-hour block of boredom for her? She did have a part-time job, which would certainly help pass the time.
Maybe I should get one too, I thought for what was probably the thirtieth time since I’d met her. But I was a lazy little sloth, so I never actually bothered to look for one. Adachi, on the other hand, was the polar opposite: a naturally hard worker. Lately, I’d come to understand that much of her odd behavior was due to her taking every tiny detail way too seriously.
I wouldn’t have been surprised if she’d spent her non-work hours studying, with that kind of personality. At the very least, her grades were better than mine—and she had a job on top of that! She was kind of a girlboss, now that I thought about it. Especially since she was doing all that of her own accord without her parents telling her to.
From that perspective, Adachi was pretty much perfect. She had the looks, the personality, and…um…most of the social skills, probably. And she—
Just then, I flinched, as though I’d scratched the surface of my heart.
“Adachi, Adachi, Adachi…”
My nose was itchy, but I couldn’t move. I’m sure thinking an awful lot about Adachi lately, I reflected, hiding my embarrassment under a forced laugh. At some point, I’d started actively seeking her out, the same way one might start following an ongoing comic on a whim. Whenever I had downtime, like today, I scanned the “pages” in search of her. Perhaps, after long enough, she might even become a mainstream hit.
Yeah, I wouldn’t mind that.
No Comments Yet
Post a new comment
Register or Login