Chapter 13: The Weight of a Kiss and the Shadow of a Past

Yesterday had not been my first kiss.

Yet, it had kept me from sleeping soundly all night.

Especially witnessing him weep before me…

My heart had felt as though it were turning to ice, each beat a hollow carved out by a hammer.

Returning from Ren’s room, I had tossed and turned restlessly.

His weeping face was precisely as it had been in childhood.

Unpredictably, he would burst into tears, only to laugh again the very next moment.

His actions defied the logic of a rational adult, driven by such caprice that they bordered on pure willfulness.

Perhaps he had inherited this trait from Aunt Ayako.

It might have been precisely this quality that led Aunt Ayako to marry Uncle Shinya, a man so steadfast yet gentle.

Their faces, however, I had nearly forgotten.

A group photograph of both families was tucked away in a cabinet, hidden there because my mother feared it would grieve Ren to see it.

Each year, on Aunt Ayako’s memorial day, Ren would invariably stand before her grave, shedding tears.

Just as he had done last night.

He grew more silent with each passing year, until, at some point, Ren seemed to have become remarkably more cheerful.

I had genuinely believed he was slowly emerging from the shadow of that tragedy, but it seemed I had been entirely mistaken.

A pang of guilt had swiftly morphed into a crushing sense of culpability.

If only we were still children, Ren would surely have cried out loud, then petulantly complained to Aunt Ayako.

Though I likely wouldn’t have paid him much mind back then, I now understood that perhaps it was precisely for that reason Ren had always wanted to stay by my side.

I was the only one who wouldn’t immediately indulge his demands.

Consequently, he would orbit around me with tireless enthusiasm.

On Ren’s sixth birthday, Aunt Ayako had told him he wouldn’t have to wear skirts anymore.

He had thrown a furious tantrum, wailing loudly.

To this day, I still couldn’t comprehend why there was a custom requiring boys to wear skirts until they turned six.

So much so that even now, my initial impression of Ren was still that of a girl.

That night, after much negotiation from Aunt Ayako, the eventual outcome was Ren trading a kiss for my building blocks.

Indeed, apart from my parents, both of my kisses had been with him.

Ren, however, seemed to have completely forgotten about the incident.

That very set of building blocks remained beneath his bed to this day; having been recovered from the ruins, it was almost perfectly intact, thanks to being stored in a box.

The photograph of two children kissing had apparently been stored on Aunt Ayako’s phone, and with her passing, there was no longer any way to view it.

‘So what exactly had happened with Ren at that moment?’

‘For him to suddenly lean in and kiss me like that.’

It was just like that year, merely a light brush of lips.

The only difference was the absence of a camera click.

And then I had fainted.

Shiraishi Kisa, it seemed, had come to a nearby bookstore to purchase reference materials and had only discovered us upon hearing the tremendous commotion.

Fortunately, Ren’s transformation had dissolved the moment he fainted.

Otherwise, I truly wouldn’t have known how to explain the situation.

Upon closer comparison, the transformed Ren, aside from being shorter, seemed to possess slightly softer facial features.

‘If Ren truly were a girl, this is likely how he would look.’

Yet, in that initial moment, I had been utterly unable to connect the two identities.

Once the peculiar sense of incongruity faded, my heartbeat inexplicably began to accelerate.

It was the first time I had felt such a sensation; my heart rate surged from sixty beats per minute to a hundred.

My pace quickened from a hundred steps per minute to a hundred and thirty.

The time it took me to return home also shortened by four minutes and forty-three seconds.

My sleep duration, remarkably, had dwindled from seven hours to roughly four.

This meant I only managed to fall asleep close to one in the morning.

My dreams, too, were a jumble of chaotic memories.

They left me feeling utterly distraught.

I didn’t believe Ren harbored any ulterior motives; indeed, if he were a girl, such willful behavior would perfectly align with my impression of him.

After acquiring my building blocks, he had never once taken them out to play.

I remained utterly baffled as to why, at that time, he had insisted on that particular item as his birthday gift.

“…”

Staring at the alarm clock until 5:50, I rose precisely as planned.

Shedding my pajamas, I changed into a clean, crisp outfit and, as was my daily custom, set out for my morning run.

While exercising, simultaneously calculating my heart rate, stride frequency, the number of open windows and doors, and so forth, was one of the few simple pleasures in my daily life.

I had heard that in England, knitting was once a popular method for stress relief and relaxation, regardless of age or gender; I imagined that for me, counting served a similar purpose.

Yet, barely three meters from my doorway, I spotted a familiar figure leaping from a side window of the house, landing gracefully on the neighbor’s eaves.

She murmured something to herself, then, like a ninja from a film, sprinted toward the southeast.

Even in that skirted attire, she maintained a light and elegant stride, a sight more captivating than any parkour display.

Undoubtedly, it was Ren after her transformation.

When I finally came to my senses, I realized my body had moved on its own accord, my mind had forgotten its counting, and I was relentlessly pursuing that increasingly distant figure.

My running speed accelerated relentlessly, until, in the end, even with the vigor of a hundred-meter dash, I couldn’t hope to catch her.

With my stamina completely depleted, I could only gasp for breath, hands braced on my knees.

‘Could a Magical Girl truly be such a being?’

Though it was still early morning, the commotion caused by the monster’s appearance was immense.

I followed the direction of the screams, pressing onward.

To avoid burdening Ren, I concealed myself in an alleyway from which I could observe the battlefield.

Ren, wielding a scythe, stood in stark opposition to the monster.

The immense disparity in their sizes filled me with an uncontrollable anxiety, despite my awareness that a Magical Girl’s combat prowess could not be measured by stature alone.

The monster’s form was twice the size of a bodybuilding athlete, its upper body stained with what might have been human blood.

Its neck was grotesquely twisted at a ninety-degree angle, and upon seeing the Magical Girl appear, it extended a long, slender tongue, much like a snake.

“Delicious…”

Judging by its mouth movements, the monster had uttered those words.

According to the officially released monster classifications, creatures like this, which retained a degree of sentience, were far more terrifying than the one that had senselessly wreaked havoc on the sports field yesterday.

They were known to select their targets, deliberately preying on humans.

In an instant.

The monster lunged at Ren with a speed that left me barely any time to react, its five fingers splitting into slender blades that slashed directly at her.

My pupils instantly dilated, and subconsciously, I forgot the fatigue in my body.

My body moved faster than my mind could process; I stumbled forward, and by the time I registered what was happening, I was already charging ahead.

I knew full well I would be utterly useless against the monster.

Time seemed to stretch, moving in slow motion.

The tip of the sharp blade was barely ten centimeters away, poised to tear across Ren’s cheek and draw blood.

I distinctly saw the monster’s verdant eyes, a chilling blend of human and beast, gleam with an excited, bloodthirsty gaze.

It was as if, in the very next instant, the doll-like Magical Girl would be stripped of her life.

I found myself unable to breathe.

The five meters separating me from Ren felt like an insurmountable chasm.

I stretched out my hand, desperate to bridge the gap, but no matter how I tried, I couldn’t reach her.

If anything went wrong this time, I feared that no amount of pleading with adults would ever bring Ren back to my side.

Facing the monster, I felt no fear.

Yet, the mere thought of Ren no longer being by my side, of not seeing him when I returned home, filled me with dread.

My body felt as though it were plummeting into the deep sea.

Every sound vanished.

‘Faster, a little closer…’

‘It’s too late—’

The monster’s blade edge pressed closer.

I couldn’t help but want to scream—

Clang!

A crimson scythe instantly blocked the monster’s attack, and the creature recoiled, thrown backward by the immense force.

Before I could even sigh in relief, the monster let out a bewildered howl.

“Aoo—”

I instinctively shifted my gaze, yet had no idea what had just occurred.

In less than a second, as the monster continued to stumble backward, its body progressively tore itself into pieces.

Thud…

No blood flowed; instead, the monster’s flesh and bone, like heavy lead weights, crashed haphazardly onto the ground before dissipating into a cloud of black mist.

‘…?’

The adrenaline coursing through me had yet to subside, but no matter how I tried, I couldn’t process what had just transpired.

From the moment I first saw the monster until its disappearance, no more than five seconds had passed—perhaps ten?

Even counting from the first scream I’d heard, it couldn’t have been more than a minute.

My pulse hammered more violently than ever before.

When I finally collected myself, intending to speak, I noticed that the Magical Girl before me was utterly spotless, not a single speck of dirt marring her.

Her smooth, delicate cheeks drew closer with each step she took toward me.

I heard cheers erupting from the surroundings.

The battle had been far from intense, yet the screams of the woman who had collapsed on the ground must have stirred some residents awake.

“Hayato…”

The girl softly called my name, then winked at me.

She had a face strikingly similar to Ren’s.

My heart once again began to beat uncontrollably.

Perhaps my brain was finally registering the danger.

I was usually the one to initiate conversations, yet looking at Ren like this, I was momentarily speechless.

The image of Ren in a skirt before the age of six, and the current Ren, gradually overlapped.

I recalled the kiss with Ren at six years old; it had merely been an adult’s joke, a childish game.

But because of what happened yesterday, I somehow found myself gazing at her lips.

Upon closer inspection, her lips were delicately shaped and pink, as if painted with lipstick.

This strange focus made my ears flush with heat.

I knew perfectly well that this person was my best friend, Aoyama Ren.

“Hayato, this isn’t the place to talk, come with me.”

‘Then why are you standing so close?’

I didn’t voice the question.

For I found myself being scooped up by her in a princess carry.

“Ren!”

My body instinctively recoiled, but this only made her hold me tighter, so much so that my arm seemed to brush against something soft and inappropriate.

Before I could even apologize, a sensation of weightlessness enveloped me, and my body was already three or four meters off the ground.

“If it’s Hayato, I don’t mind.”

The girl’s face blossomed into a radiant smile.

Just like a willful child.

It was the smile I had seen every day, a smile I knew intimately, and one I missed most dearly.

📚 Also on NHV Novels

Feelings of love

darkHealinglove

Read Now →
Not interested