Chapter 5: Graduation
Even after the commotion over the False Memory experiment subsided, I still had a problem.
The difference in fashion sense between Sara and me was so vast on dates that I felt embarrassed as her boyfriend.
So, I bought various clothes at a used clothing store and tried them on.
‘Shinya… I know you’re trying to be fashionable, but you look really dorky,’ Yuki judged after I sent her pictures. Her rating was a one out of five.
Then, on Yuki’s day, after school, we went to an apparel shop in the city.
Summer clothes were lined up, mostly in bright colors. The staff were also very fashionable.
I felt uneasy in a place I didn’t usually frequent, but that wasn’t the only thing on my mind.
“No, but I feel bad about this,” I said to Yuki while choosing clothes.
“What’s bad?” Yuki, wearing her round glasses for disguise, tilted her head.
“I think you know this, Yuki, but I’m choosing clothes for Sara. Making you come along for that is…”
It felt incredibly cruel.
I had made Yuki endure a lot during the incident with Sara at karaoke, and I had intended to make it up to her today. I wanted her to enjoy herself to the fullest.
But Yuki picked up an Aloha shirt from the rack of colorful clothes and said,
“The tension with Sara was really painful. That’s when I realized how important Sara’s friendship is and how comfortable the time we spend as a trio is.”
She said they had been subtly keeping each other in check even when I wasn’t around.
It was true that Sara seemed conscious of Yuki even when we were alone.
But Yuki couldn’t put the brakes on when she tried to become my number one. The False Memory incident made that clear. So, she had made a decision.
“I’m going to end the Daily Girlfriend to maintain the trio’s relationship. That way, we can spend lunch break together without worrying about anything, and we can all hang out, right?”
She said that way, no one would be unhappy, and she could protect her friendship with Sara.
To Yuki, Sara was a precious friend.
I fully understood her reasoning, but I felt a slight sense of incongruity. I felt there was more to her reason for ending the Daily Girlfriend. But before I could figure out the nature of that feeling, the conversation moved on.
Yuki held the Aloha shirt up to my body and laughed, saying, “It doesn’t suit you~”
“It didn’t suit me. Things like the Daily Girlfriend, I mean. First love doesn’t always work out, and it’s normal for it to fail.”
Statistics clearly showed that the success rate of first love was extremely low.
But—
“I know it’s not my place to say this, but are you really okay with that, Yuki?”
“Yes, I’m fine.”
Yuki murmured that, then examined the colorful clothes again, picking up a women’s blouse this time. It was light and suited Yuki perfectly. Holding the shirt up to herself, a style she usually didn't wear, she said,
“I think it’s time for me to find something that suits me.”
“So, I’m graduating.”
From the Daily Girlfriend.
I won’t be jealous anymore, and I won’t be selfish.
I won’t ask Shinya to pay attention to me anymore.
I won’t say I can’t live without Shinya anymore.
So—
“I think today should be our last date.”
Honestly, my feelings were complicated.
She was pushing me away after being so jealous and pouring out her feelings for me, feelings I knew were not shallow.
And I was selfish. I almost asked her to continue the Daily Girlfriend, even though I had made Yuki endure so much until now. But I didn’t.
I thought it was a very good thing that Yuki was giving up on me and looking for a new love.
My goal was Yuki’s and Sara’s smiles, and that hadn’t changed.
But as long as the Daily Girlfriend continued, as long as Yuki tried to be my number one, she would suffer in her relationship with Sara again. The False Memory incident showed us that future.
So, finding a new love and moving on was what would make Yuki happy.
Yuki must have understood that, which was why she said what she did.
“I think we bought some good clothes for Sara, didn’t we?”
We left the apparel shop and started walking through the city streets, bathed in the summer sunlight.
“Yeah, they’re really nice. I couldn’t have picked them out alone. Thanks.”
I said that and reached out to stroke her head, as usual, but Yuki shook her head.
“No. I’m graduating from you, Shinya.”
It wasn’t just graduating from the Daily Girlfriend. It also included emotional independence.
Yuki was indeed dependent on me, and she was aware of it.
That’s why Yuki, who would usually hold my hand and feel relieved, didn’t show any sign of it today.
“Today is our last date, and it’s also practice for gradually graduating from you, Shinya.”
“The last ‘practice,’ then.”
“Yeah. Besides, there’s something I’m still annoyed about with you!”
“You’re bringing that up at an amazing time.”
“I’m happy that Shinya doesn’t lie, and I think you’re honest and great, and it makes me feel safe, but!”
Yuki pouted, feigning annoyance.
“You only don’t lie because of your promise to Ichinomiya-san, and you’re always being mushy with Sara! As your ex-girlfriend, my feelings are nothing but complicated!”
“Don’t be so blunt~”
“It’s the last time!” she said with an innocent smile.
This was like a dress rehearsal for Yuki’s independence.
So, I couldn’t treat her as usual. I had to help Yuki stand on her own two feet.
Yuki must have known that, which was why she said those things.
After that, we had tea at a cafe and experienced the feeling of traveling by visiting a Hokkaido antenna shop. But Yuki didn’t cling to me like usual. That made me a little lonely, but I realized that I had to graduate from Yuki, too.
“Phew, I’m tired~”
After walking around the commercial complex, we sat down on a bench in the rest area.
“Today’s our graduation ceremony, so can we take a commemorative photo?”
“Yeah, of course.”
We leaned closer. There was a slight distance between us, and I was reminded again that we were no longer the Daily Girlfriend.
Yuki held her smartphone up to the ceiling and snapped a picture. Then, with her usual practiced ease, she edited it.
“Done!”
“Is this your specialty, the high school girl’s touch, again?”
The photo she showed me was bright and sparkling, as usual.
“If I edit it, you look a little cooler, Shinya, right?”
“Are you subtly insulting me?”
“Because I’m graduating from you, Shinya. Being cool is forbidden.”
That was true, but…
“But my favorite is this one.”
Yuki took a Purikura sticker out of the inner pocket of her smartphone case. It was the one we took together, and she looked at it fondly.
“Doesn’t that count as part of the graduation process?”
“I’m graduating little by little!”
Well, a person can’t change overnight…
But eventually, that Purikura would be tucked away in the back of a drawer, and she would have completely graduated from me. And when she became an adult, she would take it out on a whim and think, I had such a naive love once.
I thought that was fine. That was where we were meant to settle.
“Sara is a really good girl. You need to cherish her.”
“I plan to do that without you telling me.”
“I’ll get mad if you make Sara cry!” she said teasingly.
“Let’s go on a double date when I get a boyfriend.”
“Is that okay?”
“Yeah, I’m going to find a guy way better than you and show him off!”
She said a senpai from the soccer club often asked her out on dates. He seemed a little frivolous, but he looked like a sincere person on the inside. He probably wouldn’t make Yuki unhappy.
But—Yuki dating another guy. Could I handle that?
Just seeing Yuki chatting happily with the boys in class made my heart ache.
Even though I knew it was because she didn’t want to disappoint her fans as a former idol, the pain was real.
But the Yuki of now was positive about finding a new love, and someday…
“Will the day for a double date really come?”
“Do you think I won’t get a boyfriend?”
“No way. You’ll get one right away.”
She really would get one right away. Maybe she would have a boyfriend tomorrow and an appointment for a double date next weekend.
“Let’s go.”
I stood up from the bench, and we walked side-by-side.
The rest of the date was truly ordinary.
We just walked around, chatting casually. About how the False Memory experiment couldn’t be submitted as an activity report for moral reasons, so we submitted a random one instead. About being worried about final exams.
When we went to a bookstore, we pretended to be adults and read a literary work that was on display for sampling.
“That was very literary. I was so moved by the literature.”
“Yeah, literature is amazing. It’s literature.”
It was a little—just a little—too difficult for us, and we gave up reading after two pages.
In the end, reading a popular manga and laughing was the best, and we bought a copy to read together.
When we finished reading, we exchanged them and discussed our thoughts. This time, we had a proper discussion.
The last date continued after that.
The sun had set, and the view of the ground from the building’s window was entirely the night view.
That’s when it happened.
“Yuki!”
“Eh!”
I hid Yuki behind me and moved toward the window.
“W-What’s wrong?”
“Keep quiet.”
Yuki saw where I was looking and understood.
A group of boys in our high school uniform was walking a little distance away. And among them was the senpai from the soccer club.
For the sake of Yuki’s new love, this date couldn’t be discovered.
Yuki seemed to understand this and remained silent. Usually, she would get a little out of control and end up hugging me, but today, she showed no sign of that. She waited quietly for the group of boys to leave.
“Hey, Shinya. Do you remember?”
She whispered softly toward my back.
“This was a place we dated when we were together.”
The mall we went to the other day, and this place—Yuki cherished them as places full of memories.
And she deliberately chose this as our last date location.
I thought that was fine. A breakup should happen in a cherished, important place full of memories. It was the same as having a graduation ceremony at the school you had spent several years at.
And today. Yuki was graduating from the me of now and the me of the past.
“I want a graduation gift.”
After the near-miss, Yuki stepped around me and looked up at me with puppy-dog eyes.
“That’s sudden.”
“Because I feel like I’ve made good progress in graduating today.”
That was certainly true. There were a few questionable moments, but generally, she seemed fine.
So, Yuki led me to a general store.
“A graduation gift, huh? What would you like?”
“You choose, Shinya! Come on, you can’t choose something like this for yourself, right?”
It was the same with her middle school graduation gift, apparently. She was given a book voucher without being asked for a request.
“Alright, wait for me on that bench over there.”
“Okay, I’m looking forward to it!”
I watched Yuki walk back to the bench where we had been sitting with light steps and started looking for a gift.
After agonizing over it and checking various things on my phone, I bought something, returned to Yuki, and sat down next to her.
“I don’t know if you’ll like this, but…”
I handed Yuki a small paper bag.
“Can I open it?”
When I nodded, Yuki immediately started peeling off the tape on the bag.
She was very careful, yet unable to contain her excitement, like a child opening a Christmas present. Then, Yuki reached into the bag and pulled out the contents.
“A hairpin!”
Yes, I had given her a hairpin.
Yuki immediately gathered her bangs and clipped it on.
“W-Well?”
“It suits you perfectly.”
The hairpin was round, fluffy, and featured a yellow flower design.
“I don’t see this flower often. What’s it called?”
“It’s a mimosa. You might not be familiar with it.”
This flower grows very quickly. But while the trunk is thin, it’s quite precarious and can fall over if exposed to strong winds. That’s why it needs a support stake.
But once the trunk grows thick, the stake is removed, and it grows even taller. It stands on its own. I thought a mimosa hairpin was perfect for the Yuki of the future.
And there was one more reason I chose this hairpin.
“The flower language of the mimosa is ‘friendship.’”
It was on the train ride home.
We agreed that once we got off this train, we would go back to being friends.
But we were pressed close together on the train. It wasn’t intentional. It was unavoidable because the train was packed during rush hour. Yuki seemed to understand this, as she didn’t say anything in particular.
Then, even more people surged in, pushing Yuki against the window.
In the midst of the crowd, Yuki murmured softly.
“Let’s practice one last time.”
Last time. That word weighed heavily on me.
“Practice protecting your girlfriend from being groped.”
“I see.”
“Think of me as Sara and protect me.”
Yuki looked up at me and said,
“Shinya-kun… protect me.”
When she said that, I hugged her from the front.
The intonation of her voice, the anxiety in her eyes—they were the spitting image of Sara. Yuki began to look exactly like Sara to me. Her beautiful black hair that seemed to slip through my fingers, her refined features, her curvy waist despite her small frame. That’s how she looked.
Yuki’s acting skills are incredible, I marveled.
“Eep!”
The train lurched, and I tightened my hug on Yuki to keep her from falling.
“Shinya-kun, you’re surprisingly bold.”
“T-That was unavoidable!”
But as we hugged, I could feel Yuki’s heartbeat through her uniform.
Thump-thump. I felt Yuki, not Sara.
Yuki’s warm heartbeat and body temperature brought Yuki Aiba to the forefront of my mind.
“I’m Sara right now.”
“So you can see right through what I’m thinking.”
“Most things, yeah. I’m your ex-girlfriend, after all.”
No matter how much I tried to think of her as Sara, Yuki was Yuki. She was the one girl I loved.
Yuki was the one who took care of the amnesiac me and made me smile.
Perhaps I was the one who was dependent on Yuki.
I really wanted to say, “Is it wrong to hug you if it’s not practice?”
But if I said that, it might shake Yuki’s resolve. I had to see her off with a smile.
“…………”
Yuki seemed to be thinking about something, too, as she remained silent.
I was hoping Yuki would be a little clumsy like usual and throw a tantrum, saying, “I don’t want to end the Daily Girlfriend after all!” But that didn’t happen, and our relationship was coming to an end.
Perhaps it was because I was lost in thought.
“Whoa!?”
“Eek!?”
I hadn’t noticed we had arrived at the Hoshinomiya station, and the doors opened, causing us to tumble onto the platform.
I shielded Yuki, moving to the side. Our faces were close. Close enough to see every single one of her eyelashes. Both of our faces were bright red.
But we had gotten off the train, so the Daily Girlfriend was over, and we were back to being just friends. And the trio’s relationship would be protected.
—It should have been.
“What are you two doing?”
Yuki and I were entangled.
Standing there, looking down at us with freezing eyes, was—Sara.
And the item she was holding was the problem.
“You’re not going to tell me you’re just friends, are you?”
The item Sara was holding was the Purikura sticker Yuki and I had taken. The one with ‘Couple ♡’ written on it.
Why does Sara have that? I wondered, but perhaps due to the shock of tumbling out of the train, Yuki’s smartphone case had opened and fallen. The Purikura must have popped out of it.
What do I do? How can I get out of this? How can I keep their smiles from fading?
But I was at a dead end.
Although it was summer, the sun had completely set by this time, and the cicadas weren’t chirping. The air was still, and the heat had subsided. It felt somewhat out of season.
There was no one in the park, and the old streetlights cast a sad light on the slide.
“So, what was that?”
Sara’s low voice echoed in the park.
Sara had said during the Love-Brain experiment that she wanted to see me after her lesson. She had acted on that and came to see me, which was why she was at Hoshinomiya Station at that time.
I had thought the honor student Sara wouldn’t come because of her curfew. But her feelings were stronger than I had imagined, and she had secretly sneaked out of her house. She had been on the same train as us, having gone straight to the station because texting me was too slow.
And Sara had led Yuki and me to the park.
“What is your relationship?”
Light rain began to fall in the lonely park. Sara’s gaze sharpened. This was not an atmosphere where I could keep hiding the truth.
“This Purikura clearly shows you’re in that kind of relationship.”
Sara thrust the Purikura she was holding in front of us.
There was no denying it anymore.
The thought that crossed my mind was the destruction of the trio’s relationship.
That, at least, had to be avoided.
“Oh, well.”
Yuki cut off my thoughts and took a step toward Sara.
But Yuki’s demeanor was different from usual. Her narrowed eyes, the way her tongue licked her lips, and the slow, deliberate movement of her hands behind her back were strangely seductive. She was a true femme fatale.
“I guess you found out that Shinya and I were doing fun things together.”
“What… are you saying?”
Yuki looked at Sara with a challenging gaze, taking step after step toward her. Then, she brought her face close to Sara’s and chuckled.
“I seduced Shinya. I let him touch my chest and everything.”
Yuki saw Sara’s eyes widen and snorted in satisfaction.
“At first, Shinya didn’t give in. But when I cried and begged him, he touched me.”
“There’s no way Shinya-kun could refuse that!”
“I knew Shinya’s kindness and took advantage of it. But you’re the one to blame, Sara. You don’t understand a guy’s desires, Shinya’s desires, at all.”
But I’m different, Yuki continued.
“I let him touch my chest and my private parts. We did so many intense things that a kiss felt like child’s play. When Shinya’s got his thing inside me, I feel so happy that my head goes blank. My head gets fuzzy, and I can only think about Shinya, and in the end, I pass out from the pleasure.”
Yuki’s words were full of lies, but her gestures and tone made them sound believable. Because of Yuki’s acting skills, the story felt visceral.
The rain intensified, piercing us.
And Yuki continued to provoke her.
“If I were his girlfriend, I would never make Shinya hold back. But you barely let him touch you, did you? Do you really love Shinya?”
“I-I do! But a relationship between a man and a woman doesn’t progress that easily…!”
“If you love him, you can’t help but want your man to touch your important places. That’s normal.”
Well, I guess your love is only that much, Sara, Yuki added, and Sara snapped back.
“That’s a lie! It has to be a lie!”
“Hmm, you won’t admit it. Then I’ll show you.”
Yuki opened her phone and showed Sara a message exchange with me. It was an exchange where Yuki was saying she would die if we didn’t have sex, and I was reluctantly agreeing.
I didn’t remember having such an exchange. But I had a hunch.
‘The high school girl’s touch, image editing.’
Yuki was skilled at image editing. So, this image must have been prepared beforehand.
If Sara thought clearly, she would reach the same conclusion, but her head was spinning, and she didn’t realize it.
“I thought you were my friend, Yuki!”
As Sara’s angry voice boomed, the rain intensified. The rain slammed onto the dirt, splashing up, and mud splattered. Thunder rumbled, and Sara’s anger reached its peak.
“You said you would support my relationship with Shinya-kun! I believed you because you were my friend!”
“You’re right, Sara, you’re my friend. But it’s also true that I desperately wanted Shinya.”
“I never thought you were such a malicious person—!”
Sara yelled in anger, but Yuki maintained her composed expression.
I looked at Yuki in surprise, and she made eye contact with me, her usual signal.
‘This is fine. I’m doing this so you won’t get hurt.’
I remembered the words Yuki had said sometime ago.
‘Even if telling Sara about the kiss causes trouble, there’s a way to handle it.’
Yuki was a girl who cared about others. That trait often showed up in her interactions with me. Even when we started the Daily Girlfriend, she respected my feelings and agreed to let me keep dating Sara.
That’s why Yuki was prepared to sacrifice herself and confront Sara if necessary. To ensure I wouldn’t be the villain.
And Yuki was acting this way now because her plan to end the Daily Girlfriend on our last date had failed.
But—even if I knew all this, what could I do for Sara?
If I told her, “Yuki lied about having sex,” Sara might believe my word, as I never lied.
But Yuki would likely continue to act as if she had sex, just to make herself the only villain. Because of her acting skills, Sara wouldn’t be able to completely clear her doubts and would suffer even more.
“Hey, Shinya~”
Yuki’s voice pulled me back to reality. It was a sweet, seductive voice.
Yuki turned her back to Sara and hugged me from the front. She deliberately pressed her chest against me.
“Let’s go home quickly and have sex again~”
She looked up at me with moist, alluring eyes. Even though I knew it was an act, she was so seductive that I felt a jolt.
Sara finally lost her patience.
“Yuki!”
Sara came toward her, her shoulders hunched in anger.
The moment Yuki turned around.
Paaang!
A sharp, dry sound tore through the rumbling thunder.
Sara had slapped Yuki’s cheek.
Yuki pressed her reddened cheek, but she still smiled provocatively.
“Are you satisfied now?”
“You despicable person!”
Just as Sara was about to grab Yuki’s collar.
“Calm down, Sara!”
I stepped between the two of them.
“I have something I need to say, too!”
But there were no words I could say that would help. Talking about the Daily Girlfriend would only add fuel to the fire. I had kept so many secrets from Sara until now.
“It’s her fault! Shinya-kun is not at fault! It’s her!”
I desperately tried to restrain Sara, who was trying to grab Yuki, while my mind raced.
What do I do? Can I fix this like before?
Is there a way to get out of this?
I desperately searched for a solution as Sara’s angry shouts echoed, but nothing came to mind.
And as if signaling the time limit, thunder struck, and Sara declared something.
It was the one thing I never wanted to hear.
It was the word that would destroy everything I had desperately tried to protect.
“Yuki is not my friend anymore! Never come near Shinya-kun again!”
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