In a moment of decisiveness, she had composed her breakup message, but it only took another moment for Misa to start wavering.
She had intended to take advantage of Katsuya’s absence to retrieve her things from his apartment, and then to retreat to her own place …
Her friends were always green with envy whenever she displayed photos of the two of them on her phone. ‘Your boyfriend is soo cute! Misa, you’re so lucky!’ they’d say. It was something Misa had taken pride in, and it pained her to think of losing that cachet.
This too made her feel ashamed, that she’d falter over such a thing.
As she idly watched the residential scene pass before her eyes, the train slowed to a stop at the next station, Koto’en.
Koto’en is the nearest station to a well-known private university in Kansai, which means that, regardless of whether it is a weekday, weekend or holiday, many of the passengers here seem to be students.
The group of female college students who got on each had a lacrosse stick propped on their shoulder – maybe they were on their way to a scrimmage? A young guy, with kind of a punk style, the drone from his headphones audible, had his nose buried in a daunting-looking textbook.
This university was leagues above the women’s college where Misa went, and of course the one Katsuya attended didn’t even rate.
Among the passengers who boarded were also a number of high-school girls in uniform; they must have had Saturday classes. They were laughing boisterously. They seemed utterly carefree, without a thought for the future that lay ahead of them.
The high-school girls occupied the empty space near Misa, grabbing onto the hanging straps and chattering away exuberantly.
‘Hey, Et-chan, so your boyfriend is like super older, huh?’
Misa’s ears automatically pricked up at this cheeky comment – how much of an age difference made him ‘super older’, she wondered? The girl who appeared to be Et-chan, who also seemed a bit more grown up than the others, waved her hand to deflect the comment. ‘No, he isn’t!’
Et-chan went on to explain: ‘He’s only two years out of university. He has an early birthday so he’s young for his school year – he’s a mere five years older than me.’
The fact that, at her age, she considered a gap of five years ‘mere’ showed she was one of the more mature ones among her friendship group.
‘What? I can’t imagine dating a guy with a real job!? I mean, if he was older but still in school, I’d get that.’ The girl who said this was elbowed by one of the others.
‘Yeah, but now that we’re seniors, we’re the oldest. And if we don’t go on to college, there’s not much chance of going out with an upperclassman.’
‘Huh, guess you’re right. But is it fun to be with a working guy?’
‘Yeah, but …’ Et-chan tilted her head. ‘It seems like you’ve all got the wrong idea. A guy can still be clueless, even if he has a job. My boyfriend definitely falls into that category.’
One of the girls gasped in disbelief. ‘Aren’t older guys supposed to be dependable and have their shit together?’
From Misa’s perspective, this girl seemed like the type who entertained a certain fantasy about older guys, though Misa was one to talk, since she herself was not quite an adult yet either.
‘No way! At least not my boyfriend! I mean, he just recently started living on his own, and he calls me in the middle of the night, crying for help!’
‘Eh? What happened?!’
This girl, Et-chan, was quite the storyteller. All of her friends were hanging on her every word – and Misa was too.
‘So I was like, “What’s the matter?” and he goes, “I can’t get the iron to work.”’
Her captive audience squealed with laughter. The surrounding passengers began to shoot annoyed looks in the girls’ direction but they seemed completely unbothered – in fact they didn’t even seem to notice – and even Misa was tempted to break into a smile.