Chapter 5.5: A Long Phone Call between Runa and Nicole
“Hi, Nicole!”
“Hi, Runa! You come back here tomorrow, right? Sorry I could barely visit you.”
“It’s okay, one time was enough! I had Ryuto here with me too.”
“Oh yeah, speaking of that guy. How’d it go after that? Did he shape up?”
“Aha ha, ‘shape up,’ she says.”
“Well, if he does something bad again, I’m gonna make him sleep with the fishes. Tell me as soon as you suspect something.”
“I’m not worried about Ryuto.”
“But like you said the other day, didn’t he actually see your sister in secret?”
“He had his reasons, and it turned out he didn’t cheat on me. I told you that, remember?”
“Well, I guess...”
“I’m happy that you’re worried about me. Thank you.”
“...I mean, even I don’t think he’s the kinda guy who could cheat and not get found out.”
“Yeah. Ryuto wouldn’t do such a bad thing.”
“Having a change of heart isn’t the same as being bad at heart, though. Not that I don’t think it’s ridiculous to do that just a month after you start dating.”
“Ah, there goes Nicole-sensei’s poem for today.”
“‘A change o’ heart don’t mean a man’s damn bad at heart.’ By NiCo.”
“Aha ha, language, sensei!”
“Still, even if he did have a change of heart, it’d be really cruel of him to go for your twin.”
“Like I said before, it was just bad timing in a lot of ways.”
“I guess... I am convinced, more or less.”
“...With all my previous boyfriends I was always worried when we were apart. Like, what’s he doing right now? Is he with another girl?”
“And you did actually get cheated on.”
“...It’s different with Ryuto, though.”
“Isn’t that ’cause you were always together for the past two weeks? Can’t worry if he’s within eyeshot.”
“True, but I feel like it’s different from before even now that I’m back in Tokyo.”
“How so?”
“In the end, I was weak that time. I kept saying I believed Ryuto, but couldn’t really. I was scared to face reality, so I ran away... If I’d faced Ryuto then and there, I could’ve avoided spending two weeks worrying about stuff.”
“Do you think you’re stronger now?”
“Yeah. Probably... I don’t think I’ll run away even if something happens again between me and Ryuto in the future.”
“...I see.”
“We talked about all sorts of stuff these past two weeks. About my mom and dad... About Maria. About my ex-boyfriends too.”
“Mm-hmm...”
“I think he knows me better now than before... I also got to hear a lot about how he feels toward me. So it’s fine.”
As she spoke, Runa’s gaze was fixed on the shiny milk-white ring on the ring finger of her left hand.
“I feel like, from now on, our hearts are connected even when we’re not by each other’s side.”
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