Treasure From The Trash

“I still remember why I liked you.”

Why did I have to sit face-to-face with my ex-girlfriend in the middle of a weekday afternoon like this?

It was all Keiji’s fault.

Because that bastard had such a bizarrely wide circle of acquaintances, I had ended up getting back in contact with Komaki.

Who in the world would want to reunite with a woman they themselves dumped and hurt?

At the very least, I did not have that kind of peculiar fetish.

And as for dumping her—when it came to that fact alone—I did not regret it.

Even if two years had passed and Komaki still liked me now, I was confident I would not think, I should’ve just stayed with her after all.

I had briefly touched the brilliant life of Nene Komaki.

Surely the proper role of an ex-boyfriend was to treasure that fact in his heart and carry it all the way to the grave.

“I remember too. You kept saying I was ‘kind, kind’ all the time. Never made any sense.”

“Yeah. So you really do remember.”

Komaki nodded happily.

“You repeated it so much that I started wondering if it was some kind of psychological attack.”

Before we started dating and throughout the entire time we were together, she had endlessly insisted on things like, “Rokurō-kun really is kind.”

She said it so often that I wondered whether it was propaganda, a conspiracy theory, or outright brainwashing.

“I decided I would never lie.”

“I know that too.”

“I really meant it. I thought there was no one kinder than you.”

“You seriously… thought that?”

Unlike me, who lied as naturally as breathing, every word she spoke was the truth.

She had once said,

“If you tell even one lie, it ruins every truth you’ve ever told.”

And I had answered,

“If you tell one truth, you can hide ten lies behind it.”

That was how clearly different our ways of thinking were.

“Alright, your turn, Rokurō-kun. Making me say mine and then refusing to say yours would be pretty cruel.”

“…Hey, don’t accuse me of sexual harassment after I answer.”

“I won’t.”

“Your face and boobs.”

I said it while looking away.

Komaki immediately began giggling.

“When we were dating, I thought that answer was horrible, but hearing it after we broke up is kind of funny.”

“It’s not funny to me.”

I pressed my fingers between my eyebrows and sighed.

Your face and boobs.

That was the answer I had always given whenever my girlfriend inevitably asked, “What do you like about me?”

Thinking up a proper answer was a hassle, and honestly, it embarrassed me, so that was all I ever said.

“No matter how many times I asked, you only ever said, ‘Your face. And your boobs.’ I remember getting really mad and asking if there was seriously nothing else you liked.”

“And I told you there wasn’t anything else.”

“That was seriously awful. I actually thought about dumping you.”

“Yeah, that happened. But in the end, didn’t you calm yourself down by saying, ‘Obviously he’s lying. Rokurō-kun is hopelessly in love with me’?”

“No, that’s not what happened. I forgave you because you said, ‘I love everything about you. I’ll eat your hair. Munch, munch.’”

“Don’t date a monster like that. That’s disgusting.”

“Ahahaha! True.”

Unable to hold it back any longer, she laughed a little loudly.

Only when Komaki laughed with all her heart did her face scrunch up.

That face, normally unbelievably cute and perfectly arranged like a doll’s, turned ugly.

I had loved that moment.

I met a perfect girl, and what I fell in love with was that imperfect part of her.

But even if I told her that, Komaki would obviously say, “You’re lying.”

So I had always kept quiet.

Even I thought it sounded like a lie.

But that feeling had been real.

Seeing that expression again after so long made a small corner of my chest ache.

“Back then… we had fun, didn’t we?”

“Yeah. We did.”

Two years had passed, and lately I rarely thought about it anymore.

But every moment I spent with Komaki still shone in my memories like treasure.

“I don’t want to get back together as lovers, but… hey, Rokurō-kun. Will you be friends with me again?”

“Friends, huh.”

Would Komaki really have called me out here just to say something like that?

Let’s be friends again. Yay. Bye, see you next time.

To repeat myself, Nene Komaki was the first person in my life I had ever genuinely believed I could never beat.

“Enough already. Get to the point. We’ve had enough icebreaking.”

“Become my right-hand man.”

“…………What?”

“Become my business partner.”

“…………No, I don’t get it.”

“I want you to become an employee at the company I’m going to create.”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying I don’t understand!”

“What part don’t you understand?”

“The part where my ex-girlfriend calls me out and suddenly asks me to go into business with her. What is this, a pyramid scheme or some new religion?”

“No, no. Health-product fraud.”

“That doesn’t make it any less evil. …So what is it really?”

“Education. I want to change the way education works in this country.”

Her eyes were serious.

Her words were true.

Anyone could see that, not just me.

I swirled the coffee that had long since become watery and shook my head.

“I can’t. I don’t have a stable enough foundation to take that kind of gamble.”

If it were just me, maybe.

But with Yūha’s life resting on my shoulders too, I could not take that risk.

“I know. That’s why I’m talking about the future. Someday, once my business succeeds, I’ll definitely come and get you. So be ready.”

“There’s no reason it has to be me. If you play favorites with your friends, your company’s going under.”

“It’s not favoritism.”

“Then why?”

“Who knows? That’s a secret—anyway, it’s almost time for my train, so I’m going.”

Komaki drained what remained at the bottom of her cup and stood from her seat.

She pulled out her phone to check the time, raising it right in front of me.

“Ah—that.”

There was an old, battered sticker attached to the phone case.

It was a picture of a pink octopus, hardly something anyone could call stylish.

“Oops. You noticed.”

Komaki stuck out her tongue slightly, then fled from the café as if escaping.

She looked back once through the glass, then ran toward the station.

While we were dating, we had gone to an aquarium exactly once.

That sticker had been something they handed out as a visitor bonus.

It was nothing special.

And yet she had kept it until it became that worn out—

“I already threw mine away.”

The afternoon sunlight was warm.

For someone as ugly as me, it was far too bright.

Only the iced coffee, now little more than water, remained on the table.

Sitting alone in my chair, I remembered the days I had spent with her.

—Memories of a first love, far too beautiful to simply call heartbreak.