In The Glow Of The Streetlights!

I wonder how many hours have passed since then.

Inside the dark car, Toko-senpai and I sat in hushed silence, eyes fixed on Tetsuya Kamokura’s apartment. The streetlights shining from the front and back of the vehicle cast a faint, blurry glow into the interior.

…I wonder what’s going through Toko-senpai’s mind as she gazes at the window of that apartment right now…

Toko-senpai and Kamokura have been dating for over six months now.

They are both full-fledged adults.

Naturally, their relationship would be an “adult” one.
In all likelihood, Toko-senpai must have given herself to Kamokura in that very room. And now, on that same bed, another woman is having sex with her boyfriend.

…Just imagining the scene so vividly must be excruciating for her…

Of course, I’m still feeling the pain, sadness, and frustration myself.

Images of Karen’s body flash through my mind. Kamokura playing with that body however he pleases. Karen responding with cries of pleasure…

Thinking about it makes my brain feel like it’s boiling. Even now, those messages between Karen and Kamokura remain a source of trauma.

But the person who always saves me from that is Toko-senpai.

Knowing that she is in the same situation—that she is fighting alongside me—allows me to regain my composure.

Whenever I’ve felt depressed or lost my cool and been on the verge of acting out, Toko-senpai has been there to encourage me, sometimes with comfort and sometimes with harsh, bracing words.

If she hadn’t been here, I would have hated everything, stopped going to university, and shut myself inside my house. I might have berated Karen, insulted her, and yet pathetically clung to her, crying, “I don’t want to break up!” Even if it only pushed her further away…

“Isshiki-kun, when did you start dating Karen-san?”

Toko-senpai asked suddenly.

“It was after the wrap-up party for the first-semester exams in July. We did it with the whole circle, remember?”

“That drinking party where only the people who had finished their exams gathered?”

“Yes.”

I had talked to Karen several times before that. Since the training camp during Golden Week, I felt like our eyes were meeting quite often. Then, whenever we gathered at the circle’s hangout spot, we naturally started talking. Karen was a bright girl who laughed a lot, and she was popular with the other guys in the circle too.

After finding out that Toko-senpai was dating Kamokura, I had set my sights on Karen. After that party, I walked Karen partway home and confessed to her there. Those next two months were probably the happiest time of my life. Our relationship became official within the circle, and we went on all sorts of dates during summer vacation.

…But since when has she been cheating with Kamokura?…

…Even while we were happily dating, was she sleeping with him behind my back all along?…

I looked up at Kamokura’s apartment window again.

Karen really is a shallow woman. Today, Kamokura only called her because his primary girlfriend, Toko-senpai, couldn’t make it, and she just came running like a substitute. Though I doubt Kamokura actually told her, “You’re just the backup.”

“So that was the trigger.”

Toko-senpai’s voice pulled me back from my thoughts. To shake off the unpleasant images, I decided to ask her a question.

“Toko-senpai… you started dating Kamokura-senpai in your second year, right?”

“Yes.”

“Why did you decide to date him?”

I had always been a little curious about that. Granted, Tetsuya Kamokura is attractive. On top of being handsome, he’s a “sunny” type who naturally draws people in. Whether in high school, university, or the circle, he’s always popular with the girls. Even at the high school culture festival, when he performed as the lead singer of a band, girls from every grade were screaming for him.

But I found it hard to believe that a woman as rational as Toko-senpai was attracted to him for those reasons alone. This whole ordeal had only made me feel that more strongly.

Toko-senpai’s silhouette moved slightly. She turned her face from the apartment to look straight ahead. The streetlights faintly highlighted her profile.

“Tetsuya… was my first,” she said quietly, pausing for a moment before continuing.

“When I started my second year of university, all my friends had boyfriends. People around me would say, ‘Hurry up and get a boyfriend. It’s impossible that you’ve never had one.’ When people talk like it’s the ‘natural’ thing to do, you start to think maybe you have to. I think I might have been a bit impatient back then, for various reasons.”

Bathed in the hazy light of the streetlamp, Toko-senpai’s profile was as beautiful as a painting. Only her lips moved slightly as she spoke.

“Tetsuya had been approaching me persistently ever since I entered high school. He’s good-looking, smart enough, athletic, and the kind of person who sits at the center of the social circle. He was kind to me, too. I thought he’d be good as a boyfriend. I was quite shallow myself, wasn’t I?”

I remember thinking then, Even a woman like Toko-senpai feels that way. I suppose it’s only natural, in a way.

“But isn’t that how most women choose a boyfriend? Is that why you’re able to be so detached about this whole thing, Senpai?”

“Detached? Is that how I look to you?”