ECPW Chapter 3

VOLUME 1 — SPRING

Chapter 3: Clematis

 

“Seriously! I wanna punch that guy so bad!!”

 

“Yeah, he’s the worst… Shiori, are you okay?”

 

In the still noisy classroom of the morning, it was my childhood friend Renji and my best friend Ayu who spoke to me.

 

After somehow managing to finish my library committee duties and entered the classroom safely, I greeted the two of them as usual while they were having a friendly conversation.

 

However, Renji, being sharp as ever, noticed that something was off with me. 

 

He was persistently asking if anything had happened. I ended up telling them about the morning’s events.

 

“Seriously, I wanna go punch him right now!!”

 

“But you know, it’s really good that person helped you, right? Like a prince, seriously.”

 

While Renji, in his battle-ready stance, was cracking his knuckles and spitting curses, Ayu-chan had a dreamy look in her while absentmindedly playing with her neatly arranged hair.

 

With her outstanding figure and what you might call an older-sister type appearance, Ayu was kind and gentle. 

 

No matter how you look at her, she can only be classified as a beauty and my prideful best friend.

 

“Calling him a prince? How naive can you get, idiot! You read too many web novels and manga!!”

 

Renji, who was cursing at Ayu-chan, loosened his fingers and slammed his hands on the desk. Today, as always, he had two piercings shining in his left ear.

 

Perhaps because we have been childhood friends since we were small, or maybe it’s just too hard to understand, but Renji seems to be quite popular with girls…apparently.

 

His asymmetrical short hair is stylishly arranged, and when he smiles, his slightly protruding canines are visible. Renji is tall and popular. As captain of the soccer team, he is also quite athletic.

 

(…Come to think of it, Renji has a lot of qualities that make him popular, doesn’t he?)

 

He’s well aware of it himself, often jokingly says ”I’m cool.”

 

And then, after being subjected to Ayu-chan’s sharp wit, the two of them would ask for my approval—that’s our usual pattern of laughter.

 

“Oh my, Renji-kun, are you jealous of the prince? Because your precious and cute ‘just a childhood friend’ Shiori was helped by another guy?”

 

“(…Jealousy?)”

 

“Yo…u, you idiot!! There’s no way that’s true…!!”

 

“Oh, really? Hmmm~”

 

When Ayu-chan narrowed her eyes at him and made a teasing gesture, Renji’s face turned red and he raised his voice.

 

“Y-You’re totally wro…ng! It’s not like that at all! Because, you know, good-looking guys tend to be popular, so there are a lot of playboys! The ones like me who are handsome on the outside and on the inside are rare, you know!?”

 

“Sure, sure. Renji, you’re been so annoying since this morning.”

 

“Who’s annoying!? You’re the one who started it, Ayu!!”

 

“Geez. Stop yelling. You’re so loud, my eardrums might burst, right, Shiori?”

 

“(Haha, yeah.)”

 

“Hah!? Shiori, what are you agreeing to?! It was definitely Ayu, not me, being rude!!”

 

“Okay, okay. I guess you’re right. Shiori, ignore the noisy ones and let’s check our homework, okay? I reviewed with the method you taught me the other day.”

 

“(Sure!)”

 

“Hey! Don’t ignore me!”

 

Watching the lively duo, my morning gloominess lifted just a little.

 

＊　＊　＊

 

“Shiori, are you okay? Should I skip club activities and walk home with you?”

 

──Then, it was after school.

 

As I was getting ready to go home alone, Renji came over to me with a worried expression.

 

“Ayu left for her part-time job, and if something happens to you again while you’re alone… Besides, you know! If something happens to you, Auntie will… be worried.”

 

“So, what?” I thought, looking at Renji, who was awkwardly avoiding eye contact.

 

(…Renji is really kind.)

 

He usually has a sharp tongue and is noisy, but he doesn’t raise his voice much when we’re alone. 

 

Whenever I’m feeling down even a bit, he always cares for me like this and makes me laugh a lot.

 

Perhaps our relationship might be more like siblings than childhood friends.

 

With Renji in front of me, I took my cellphone out of my pocket and quickly typed in some text, then turned the screen towards Renji.

 

“(Renji, you have club activities, right? The tournament is coming up soon, and it’s no good if the captain slacks off.)”

 

Renji, who was already accustomed to looking at the screen, looked half-sulky and turned his gaze back to me.

 

“…Got it. But if something happens, you have to tell me, okay?”

 

“(Yeah, I got it.)”

 

“And, don’t walk alone in dark places, okay?”

 

“(I’ll be careful.)”

 

“…Absolutely. If you break that rule, you’ll get a flick on the forehead.”

 

“(…Thank you for worrying about me, Renji.)”

 

I didn’t type out the last words but mouthed them to Renji. 

 

As I did so, Renji’s warm hand touched my hair just once, smiling kindly at me and then moving away.

 

＊ ＊ ＊

 

(…But, to be honest, there’s one thing that’s troubling me.)

 

Walking alone to the station, I touched the empty pocket of my uniform where my student handbook should be.

 

──The student handbook.

 

Normally, it should be in this pocket, but it’s not here now.

 

I made sure it was there when I left home this morning, but it was gone when I arrived at school.

 

So, logically speaking, I must have dropped my student handbook somewhere during this morning’s events.

 

(I’m in trouble…)

 

When I arrive at the station, I’ll ask the station attendant if it’s been turned in as lost property.

 

With that in mind, as I was walking, I typed something into my phone to show to the station staff.

 

And then,

 

“…Shiori Hiratsuka?”

 

“…!!”

 

“If you keep looking at your phone while walking, you’ll trip again, you know?”

 

Suddenly my name was called, I raised my head sharply.

 

Then, I found myself holding my breath as I saw the man from this morning──the one who saved me from being molested and falling down, with such a beautiful face, standing there.

 

(Wh-why…)

 

“Surprisingly, we meet again. I was thinking I might have to wait for hours.”

 

He said, lifting his body from the wall and walking toward me with a gentle smile.

 

“I guess I got lucky. We met right away.”

 

(Wh-what…? What is this…? Why does this person know my name…)

 

But despite his words, my mind was in complete turmoil.

 

Why is he here in front of me now? And how does he know my name?

 

To top it off, the way he just spoke makes it seem like he was waiting for me. Why…?

 

“And… first of all. Let me apologize.”

 

“(Wha…)”

 

“I picked this up this morning, and I happened to look inside it.”

 

“…!!”

 

“I’m sorry?”

 

However, my questions were quickly answered.

 

As I dropped my gaze in response to his words, there, in his beautiful hands, was my student notebook.

 

“I picked up what you dropped this morning. So… I was waiting to return it to you.”

 

(This person… I see. And my name…)

 

I muttered the words of understanding in my mind and accepted the student handbook from him.

 

The warmth of his hand, unexpectedly touched, was cold. As I alternated between looking at him and the student handbook, he frowned as if troubled by something.

 

“…It’s selfish, but since I peeked inside without permission, I wanted to at least apologize for that. I waited like this instead of handing it over to the station attendant, that’s the reason.”

 

“Once again, I’m sorry.” No girl would be able to resist the sight of him saying such things with a melancholy expression on his face.

 

Looking at his eyes, which had a certain loneliness in them, my heart raced involuntarily, and I almost forgot how to breathe.

 

“Anyway, that’s all I wanted to tell you.”

 

“…,”

 

“I’m sorry for making it so difficult to get home.”

 

“(Thank you very much.)”

 

“Huh,”

 

“(Thank you very much for taking the trouble to deliver it to me.)”

 

As he turned to leave, I didn’t type out my gratitude on my phone but mouthed it to him instead.

 

Somehow, I felt that I wanted to express my gratitude to him in my own “words.”

 

“… “

 

“…”

 

Even though those words were unlikely to reach him.

 

He can’t hear my words.

 

Seeing his eyes widen and frozen at my actions, I hurriedly opened the message screen on my cellphone.

 

“Thank you for taking the trouble to deliver it to me”

 

And, as usual.

 

I quickly tried to type out the words I had just mouthed to him, but…

 

“….You’re welcome.”

 

“(…Huh)”

 

Suddenly, his cold hand, which had just touched mine, overlapped the hand that was holding my phone.

 

Startled by this, I lifted my gaze from the phone I had been looking at and found him once again staring at me with a soft smile on his face.

 

“It was communicated properly.”

 

“…”

 

“I heard your voice just fine.”

 

His words, like a spring breeze, seemed to resonate with my heart, causing it to beat softly.

 

＊　＊　＊

 

“Thank you.”

 

I felt like I could [hear] the words she was trying to convey to me surprisingly easily.

 

That’s because the girl in front of me──Shiori Hiratsuka, to be precise──seems to suffer from something called “aphonia,” which means she can’t speak.

 

This morning, when she didn’t respond to my words at all, I felt a little uneasy.

 

But the answer to that was the “student handbook” that I just returned to her.

 

A dog-eared bookmark I found by chance.

 

When I opened it out of curiosity, I saw the following clearly written in beautiful handwriting that must have been hers.

 

[I suffer from aphonia. I cannot speak, but I can hear.]

 

With those words, everything made sense.

 

The serious-looking girl hadn’t uttered a word during this morning’s incident.

 

As she left, she mouthed something to me.

 

The student handbook, which I never get a chance to use after receiving it, has the feeling of being used somehow.

 

And when each of these “dots” connected to form a “line”──

 

I really want to try it again.

 

I wanted to meet her.

 

“Can you do sign language?”

 

“(No… I can do a little, but I mostly communicate through my cellphone.)”

 

“Oh, I see. But still, yeah. You type really fast.”

 

“(Yes, I’m often told that… I’ve been unable to speak for five years now. Before I knew it, I was typing so much faster…)”

 

─── Inside the train.

 

I was sitting next to her and I said something to her, and she seemed very familiar and used her cell phone to say something back to me.

 

After I gave her back her student notebook, she was the one who started talking, saying that it seemed odd for her to continue to talk while standing in front of the ticket gate at the station.

 

“Where’s the nearest station?” I asked, and she pointed to the station I was supposed to get off at.

 

I was surprised by this coincidence. When I told her, “We’re at the same station,” she seemed even more surprised, her eyes widening.

 

(…Coincidences do happen to align quite well sometimes.)

 

And that’s how we ended up in this situation.

 

The girl I spoke to for the first time this morning and I were now sitting side by side.

 

Although I didn’t believe in coincidences leading to encounters, I couldn’t help but think such things, albeit out of character, in the back of my mind.

 

“But if you type so fast, do you really need to write it down in your student handbook?… Oh, I see. Is it a precaution in case you forget or lose your cellphone?”

 

While answering my own question, she smiled awkwardly and nodded slightly.

 

“(Yes. I save the same information as in my cellphone onto the student handbook so that I can quickly show it to someone I’m meeting for the first time. However, as you mentioned earlier, I would be in trouble if I forgot my cellphone, so I always carry the student handbook as a means of emergency communication…)”

 

After showing me the screen she had typed all of that on, she dropped her gaze with a sad expression.

 

Seeing her like that, I thought, “Ah, I see.”

 

She mentioned just a moment ago that she had “been unable to speak for five years.”

 

There must have been some sort of event that served as the “trigger” for her to lose her voice five years ago.

 

While waiting for her at the ticket gate to return her student handbook, I had been researching aphonia on my phone.

 

When you search for “aphonia” on the Internet, the search results display a list of keywords related to aphonia.

 

Among them, the top-ranking one was “causes of aphonia.”

 

And when I tapped on it, a certain word written there caught my eye.

 

[Psychogenic aphonia]

 

It seems that the cause of aphonia is mostly stress or psychological trauma.

 

Of course, there might be exceptions, but most people who suffer from aphonia seem to lose their voice due to such reasons.

 

Considering what she had told me, it had already been five years… which was quite a long time.

 

So, the event that served as the “trigger” for her to lose her voice must have been quite a painful one for her.

 

While thinking about such things in my mind, I continued to gaze at her without expressing it in my expression or voice.

 

(…She has long eyelashes.)

 

The particles of light emitted by the setting sun landed on her eyelashes as she sadly lowered her eyes.

 

With her glossy black hair reaching semi-long, her black eyes, and her faint pink lips, she looked good against her fair skin.

 

She was about the same height as my shoulder, which I thought was average for a girl.

 

─── What past and sorrow does she carry on this delicate body of hers?

 

Lost in these thoughts, the train announcement informed us that we had reached our stop.

 

“Is your house close from here?”

 

As we got off the train together, I nodded in response to his question and indicated with my left hand, using my right hand to represent “15”, that it was about 15 minutes away.

 

Seemingly understanding immediately, he remarked, “15 minutes, it’s close yet far, a subtle distance,” as he said this, he seemed to be lost in thought.

 

(…He really is a beautiful person.)

 

Even though all he’s doing is lowering his gaze slightly and resting his fingers on his chin, for some reason, it looks incredibly picturesque.

 

Whether it’s because of his quick thinking or the fact that he can easily have a conversation with someone he just met, I was inwardly surprised.

 

After all, besides my family and Renji, only Ayu-chan can understand what I want to say without using my cellphone.

 

For everyone else, it’s difficult to convey my thoughts and emotions without using gestures along with my cellphone.

 

…And eventually, people found it troublesome to communicate with me like that, and they leave before they get used to [talking] to me.

 

Afterward, they subtly avoid me. Since I understand that I would be a nuisance if I approached them, that’s the end of my relationship with those people.

 

In these past five years, I’ve experienced this so many times that it became natural to me.

 

“Ah, that’s right.”

 

“(Huh?)”

 

“Could you lend me the student handbook again? And if possible, a pen too.”

 

It seemed like he suddenly had an idea, as he gently squinted his eyes at me.

 

Surprised by his words, I hurriedly took out the student handbook from my chest pocket and picked up the pen that had been rolling around in my bag, placing it in his hand.

 

“Thank you,” he said with another gentle smile, then opened a page of the student handbook and began to write something smoothly.

 

(…I wonder what he’s writing.)

 

“…Okay, I think this will do.”

 

But before I could even guess his intentions, the student handbook was returned to me.

 

I received the open student handbook. As I looked at the page he had written on, my eyes widened involuntarily.

 

[Itsuki Souma]

 

It has his name and what appears to be his cell phone number.

 

And the words “6:45 a.m., Car 1” were written neatly.

 

“The train you take at your time is relatively empty if you’re in Car 1.”

 

“(Huh?)”

 

“The car you were in today is closest to the stairs, right? That’s why it was so crowded, but Car 1 is surprisingly empty. Oh, and so is the last car.”

 

“However, because it’s troublesome to walk all the way to Car 1, I always used to get on there.”

 

I just looked up at his beautiful face, not knowing what his intentions are when he said that in a gentle voice.

 

“…From tomorrow, I’ll also get on Car 1.”

 

“(…!)”

 

“It’s a pain to walk though, isn’t it?”

 

But as I looked at him, smiling jokingly, it suddenly hit me.

 

I immediately understood that his actions and words were out of concern for me.

 

…I understood it immediately.

 

(…!)

 

Involuntarily, I felt a sensation as if something was stuck in my throat, and my nose tingled with pain.

 

My grip tightened on the student handbook, and my breath quivered as I bit my lip.

 

Even picking up on such trivial gestures and my current expression, it seemed he knew everything.

 

He placed his palm on my hair just once.

 

“…I just wanted to do that. It’s not something you should worry about. I also want to ride in a quiet car.”

 

“(But…!)”

 

“So, if it bothers you, you can get on the last car. I want to ride in Car 1. Oh, and you don’t need to register my number on your phone or anything.”

 

“(…!)”

 

“But… I want you to understand one thing. It’s not because I’m interested in ‘aphonia’. I just… wanted to talk to you. That’s why I recommend Car 1. I really mean it.”

 

I could tell by his serious gaze that his words were full of kindness.

 

…Even though I haven’t said anything.

 

However, he is still experiencing the difficulties in socializing and the cowardice that I experienced after losing my voice.

 

Yet, he picked up on the difficulties in socializing and the cowardice that I experienced after losing my voice.

 

I was even concerned about dragging him into my situation.

 

He gathered all of these things together and preemptively erased the ‘worries’ and ‘anxieties’ that were floating inside of me.

 

“(…It’s not bothersome at all. I’m happy.)”

 

“..In that case, that’s good. I thought it was too much of a stalker-like comment and was fretting about how you might react.”

 

Even without using a cellphone to type, he picked up on my words just now.

 

He picks up on them from my expressions, mouth movements, and gestures.

 

Just that, and nothing more.

 

But I never expected someone to do all that so naturally, without finding it even the slightest bit troublesome.

 

“(I… will register it. Absolutely, I will!)”

 

“Haha, okay, thank you. Oh, and please call me Itsuki. …I don’t really like being called by my last name.”

 

“(U-Understood… Itsuki-senpai. Thank you so much…!)”

 

“…Thank you for trusting someone like me.”

 

“(Huh?)”

 

“Well then, see you tomorrow─Shiori.”

 

It will still be a while before I know the reason for the “unnatural feeling” I felt at that moment.

 

As I, carefree as ever, watched his back as he called me “Shiori,” as I gently placed my hand on my racing heart.

 

　*

　 ﾟ

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　+:

　｡

　+

　*

　 ﾟ

 

『Clematis（クレマチス）』

A beautiful heart.

 

 

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