Once Yamato had left the gymnasium, Yuzu felt subtly uncomfortable staying there. It was a feeling like being the ‘away’ team in a match and now playing in the enemy home base.

Of course, given how Yuzu was someone with wide connections, she had many friends in the basketball club, so that ‘away’ feeling might have just been her imagination; nevertheless, she couldn’t shake that uneasy feeling.

The reason was simple: this was Hinano’s home base.

“Sorry, Nanamine-san. I ended up asking your boyfriend a favour out of the blue,” Hinano called out to Yuzu with a smile that seemed fake—probably she was trying to make the latter feel better.

Yuzu also hid her inner turmoil and same as Hinano, she feigned a smile and shook her head as she replied, “Not a problem. Yamato himself said that he wanted to do it, so you don’t have to feel bad about it.”

If anyone were to appropriately describe the sense of distance between Yuzu and Hinano, they would be described as ‘friend of a friend’. Originally, Yuzu had many friends in the girls’ basketball club since she sometimes accompanied Aki—she had even talked to Hinano on several occasions.

But that was as far as their relationship went. They could have a lively conversation when together and Yuzu knew that Hinano was not a bad person; however if she couldn’t say that there was something that she could call affection or friendship between them.

“By the way… Nanamine-san, you once asked me about Yamato, right?” When Yuzu was deep in thought, Hinano asked her a question.

“Ah, yes. I did.”

At that time, however, Hinano had mostly dodged the topic.

“I’m sorry, but I feel like I was hiding something from you. Yamato and I… we had a kind of awkward relationship. Even after we entered high school, we’ve never spoken to each other.” Hinano has a complicated look on her face.

Seeing that, for some reason, Yuzu’s heart palpitated even harder. For an instant, she was almost dumbfounded at herself that he could become jealous like that… Yet somehow, it felt like a different emotion altogether.

“Um… I heard a bit about that from Yamato-kun.”

Apparently, Hinano had seen that Yuzu was jealous regarding her thing with Yamato and Hinano and was trying to explain herself.

“Since you’re here, I’d like you to tell me all about Yamato-kun in middle school.” Yuzu put on a smile and decided to accept Hinano’s kindness.

“Yes, alright. I’m sure you’ll feel more comfortable that way too. So what should we talk about first…?”

“So how did you two meet?”

In response to Hinano who couldn’t decide, Yuzu right away voiced out the part that had been bothering her. Hinano nodded, then smiled nostalgically and began to speak.

“In the summer of the first year of junior high school, I was supposed to fold paper cranes for the seniors who were retiring from the girls’ basketball club… I was too shy to ask my friends for help at the time. But Yamato, who happened to be passing by, helped me.”

“Really…”

Yuzu found that very surprising. The current Yamato was not exactly an unkind person, but he certainly was not the kind of person who would do anything for a complete stranger. Basically, he was a non-interventionist.

“He took care of me a lot after that, which helped me get over my shyness and make a lot of friends.” Hina, who had been talking with such a happy face, suddenly became gloomy as she continued, “And yet… somehow things didn’t work out between me and Yamato. To be honest, I still don’t know what went wrong or if I ever did anything that made him dislike me…”

—The answer to that, Yuzu knew.

The fact that Yamato had come to terms with his true nature, and how he had become exhausted from dealing with people.

However, Yuzu was hesitant to tell her what Yamato had never spoken to the other party, so Yuzu kept her mouth shut.

“Hiiragi-san… Do you like Yamato-kun?”

Instead, the thing she wanted to confirm the most came out of her mouth.

At these words, Hinano’s eyes widened slightly, and then she slowly shook her head, “Nope, it’s not like that, so don’t worry.”

Yuzu was not so naive to accept those words at face value, but when Hinano said that, it was strangely persuasive.

“I don’t know how to describe it, it’s a bit different than that feeling of like. Yamato was my benefactor, my closest friend, and I respected him… I guess you could say I admired him. I looked up to Yamato. I wanted to be like him.” Hinano smiled as she spoke, yet she looked somewhat forlorn.

Seeing this, Yuzu’s palpitations intensified. Her heart was beating so hard that it was strangely echoing in her chest.

“Alas, humans are complicated beings. For me, he was someone that I admired and was my best friend, but for Yamato, it didn’t seem that way. So… we ended up not being able to say what we wanted to say to each other and not being able to quarrel or fight.”

“———”

At that moment, Yuzu knew precisely why she was having these heart palpitations: Hinano was the failed version of Yuzu. In terms of her relationship with Aki, Sota, and Keigo.

That time when things were going badly wrong in her circle where she tried to manoeuvre without showing her weakness to anyone and was never able to have direct confrontations; yet she ended up blowing up the whole thing and almost losing everything. In the end, it was Yamato who smoothed things over, but if he had only kept his hands off…

She believed she would end up in the same situation as Hinano.

“But… It seemed to me that you and Yamato speak just like normal?” Yuzu suddenly felt breathless and gave out that remark.

Then Hinano slowly shook her head as she spoke, “To be able to speak normally is exactly what’s making it even stranger. Things ended awkwardly between us; usually in those situations, people can’t just talk to each other like that… We clearly couldn’t during middle school. In the end, the reason we now can speak like this is…”

—Because both of us treat each other as strangers.

The words that were not directly spoken were painfully clear to Yuzu. The intimacy had vanished, the reservedness was born, while the feelings could not be directly expressed. As a result of this distance, a communication that was only for the sake of keeping appearances came about.

“So I think that maybe this is an opportunity,” as Yuzu remained stumped for words, Hinano announced in a hushed—but determined—voice.

“Yamato used to like to do things together, like preparing for a festival. Maybe, through this, Yamato will go back to the way he used to be.”

Then Hinano gave a little laugh, “Then this time, I’ll be sure to ask him the question I once swallowed at that time: ‘Why did you distance yourself from me?’ With the current us, we can’t possibly confront things head-on… But if he were to return to how he used to be, this time, definitely…”

“That—”

—will be unfavourable for me. This thought crossed Yuzu’s mind.

The Yamato that was with Hinano back then was not the one that Yuzu knew. The one that Yuzu was to be together with was the current Yamato.

“…”

However… At the same time, Yuzu felt that she couldn’t stop Hinano from doing what she intended to do. It was because Hinano was awesome in her eyes. In comparison, Yuzu had run away when her whole friendship was at the brink of total ruin. If Yamato had not called her back, she would never have been able to come back to this place again.

On the other hand, Hinano was trying to get up on her feet and make up for what she lost again. Yuzu understood how awesome that was and the pain that came with it; the more reason she couldn’t bring herself to stop Hinano.

“I see…” Yuzu did her best to nod.

“Yes. So I’m not thinking of taking Yamato away from Nanamine-san or anything like that.”

Yuzu’s heart was pained. If only Hinano was talking about someone else other than Yamato, Yuzu would surely give her respect and full moral support.

“…Hiiragi-san, I understand your feelings.”

Yuzu couldn’t stop Hinano. She couldn’t forgive herself if she did that.

But… what if?

What if Yamato became like he used to be—before Yuzu had met him? What would happen to their relationship?

Such anxiety made Yuzu’s heart feel ever so constricted.