At midnight, the campus Christmas felt like a city that never sleeps. Even though it was nearly 12:00 AM, quite a few students were still lingering. The trees along the tree-lined path were decorated with little light bulbs for the occasion, and the flickering lights shone down on couples whispering sweet nothings to each other.
The biting cold wind couldn't disperse people's enthusiasm for the holiday.
It was indeed impossible to return home tonight; the last Shinkansen train was at 11:00 PM, and it was long past that.
So what she said was true; we were spending Christmas night away from home. Where would there be a hotel around here? Or had she already arranged everything, keeping it from me early on?
She was used to keeping things from me.
Walking out of the academic building and returning to the giant Christmas tree from earlier, I felt like this short distance had taken forever to walk.
In the cold wind, the young girl turned back. Her beautiful silhouette cast a shadow under the soft light, and her long eyelashes cast a shade over her fair, straight nose.
"I'll tell you once we get back to the room."
...Room?
The young lady walked straight ahead until we reached the entrance of a traditional luxury hotel. She recited the name and phone number with familiarity, and we smoothly took the elevator to the sixteenth floor.
This was an expensive hotel, featuring a fusion of typical traditional Japanese architecture and modern technology. The top floor of the skyscraper even had a giant, frameless glass window overlooking all of Tokyo. I looked at this luxury suite, which cost 80,000 yen a night, and was simply speechless. The room was not only luxuriously decorated but also came with complimentary steak and red wine, and even a thoughtfully written card, all scattered with rose petals.
There was no need to guess what was written inside. Besides couples, who would stay in such a luxurious hotel on Christmas night?
I crossed my arms, took a deep breath, and waited for her to give me an explanation.
Kusanagi hadn't expected the hotel's antics either. She had been acting with the practiced ease of a wealthy young lady, but the moment she saw that pile of things, the tips of her ears turned a soft red.
"I didn't ask you to set up this kind of thing." The young girl hurriedly called out to the staff members who were about to leave. "Yes, yes... take it away. Keep only what's on the table; I don't want anything else."
The staff followed her instructions one by one. The empty room seemed even larger, with only a few elegant scented candles and the red wine already poured remaining.
I frowned; these two things shouldn't be left here either.
"Merry Christmas, and have a pleasant stay." The staff smiled politely and then left. The door lock clicked shut. The room was soundproofed so well that not a single sound from the outside could be heard.
Even a deep breath couldn't alleviate my strange mood right now. I pressed my temples and squeezed my aching eyes shut.
"Miss Kusanagi, I am waiting for your explanation."
The young girl finished everything, turned around with her hands behind her back, and said very seriously, word by word: "Before my explanation, take off your shoes first."
"Take off my shoes?"
I didn't know what she was up to, but I did as she asked.
I was wearing a pair of low-top sneakers today, a casual style, with the laces loose on the floor. Stepping barefoot on the floor was a bit cold, and I couldn't figure out her intention. Kusanagi also took off her black leather shoes. She was wearing white calf-length socks, which highlighted her smooth, white-lotus-root-like calves, making them stand out against the dark hotel floor.
The next second, the young girl's slender ankles poked into my shoes, stepping deep inside. My shoes were too big for her; her supple, fair feet couldn't stay in them at all, so she could only hold them with her hands in a slightly comical way and then walk around carrying them.
Why did she want to wear my shoes? I watched her force herself to walk a circle before sitting down, her breathing becoming a bit rapid.
"What are you doing?"
The young girl looked down at the shoes and didn't take them off.
"Didn't you say that to understand someone, you must walk in their shoes and think from their perspective? I am wearing your shoes right now, standing in your shoes, wanting to understand the tip of your iceberg."
"...That was just a metaphor, not a literal instruction to wear the shoes." I was stunned, a sour ache rising in my heart. She had listened to every word, and had actually gone and done it, as if by wearing my shoes, she had really stepped into my heart.
"Your countless annotations and readings of me do not constitute one ten-thousandth of me, but they are you, seen through entirely." She lowered her head, her beautiful features indistinct and blurry. "That statement is wrong. If my countless annotations and readings of Miss Nozawa are only one ten-thousandth, then I am willing to use a thousand, ten thousand, a billion times more time to read the real you."
I couldn't say a single word.
"You said not to care about someone who can't even decide their own life." The young girl shook her head and suddenly smiled. "What a coincidence, we really are the same kind of people. I can't decide my own life either, and someone like me has no value in being cared about."
I interrupted her, my heart twisting. "You and I are different. You..."
"You and I are indeed different." She looked at me, her gaze locking onto my face. "Although I don't care about myself, I have someone I care about."
I would have to be a fool not to understand that.
Hearing these words from a sixteen-year-old girl gave me a stabbing pain, as if I had been pierced by an arrow. It would be a lie to say I wasn't shocked; my heart didn't feel like my own. Every word she said made me feel the dense, crushing melancholy slamming into me, my heartbeat so fast it hurt.
"Regarding The Jikei University School of Medicine, well, I did put in some effort to obtain the qualifications to enter."
The young girl took off the shoes and sat cross-legged, her snowy, slender ankles bare, as if only this could alleviate her nervousness. "It is said that foreign doctors who want to stay in Japan need to have very solid relevant experience, and I think observing at The Jikei University School of Medicine counts as one such item. The materials on your desk accidentally fell on the floor, and I saw them when I picked them up. I wanted to give a reward to you for your hard work. Since it's Miss Nozawa's first time spending Christmas in Japan, you surely haven't been to this place, and I wanted to see you happy."
"I booked this hotel in advance." She paused, her tone clear and slightly arrogant. "The reason I didn't tell you was that I was afraid you wouldn't come if you knew. You definitely would have made me go home. I wasn't trying to hide it from you on purpose."
I felt both heartache and helplessness. Things had reached this point, yet I had been so careless and completely oblivious, as if everything were my fault.
"This was just a Christmas gift I carefully prepared." She stared at me. "But Miss Nozawa not only failed to appreciate it, but also questioned me."
I stammered, trying to explain: "No, that's not what I meant. I just thought it was too valuable, and I was worried about making you feel uncomfortable, so I..."
"So you snapped at me." The young girl's voice was low and soft, laced with an unclear grievance, and her dark, moist pupils seemed to ripple faintly. God is my witness, I would rather she be angry and willful, or domineering and unreasonable, than like this right now.
It was clearly me asking her, but now everything had completely reversed, and it had become me bullying her.
I admit my tone was a bit serious, but it absolutely didn't reach the point of snapping at her. I really couldn't defend myself. What the answer was didn't matter anymore; from start to finish, it was all my fault.
The light in the young girl's eyes wavered. She spoke with extreme sadness, as if I had done something monstrous and heartless, letting her down and hurting her.
"I, that's not it... You, sigh."
I couldn't defend myself and frustratedly grabbed a handful of hair. Thinking that I might have misunderstood her, not only twisting her good intentions but also desecrating the young girl's sincerity, was simply unforgivable. In short, I was feeling extremely regretful and annoyed right now. I shouldn't have asked her that question; now it had led to such an awkward situation.
Seeing my restless distress, the young girl didn't speak either, her pair of clear, dark, lustrous eyes fixed on me.
I had no choice but to lower my head and coax her in a soft voice: "I'm sorry, it's all my fault. I really like this gift, really."
"Really?"
"I'm very happy, really."
"Then how do you plan to repay me?" A glint of light flashed in the young girl's eyes.
She asked too suddenly and too quickly, so much so that it made me feel like she had prepared this question long ago and was just waiting for me to jump into the trap.
This, how could I repay her? I looked at her with difficulty. "...I don't know. Is there anything Miss Kusanagi wants?"
"Miss Nozawa seems to have forgotten that you still owe me one time, as a sleeping bag."
"..."
"This suite is large, but there is only one bed."
The young girl's moist gaze flickered, constantly scanning my face. Her grievance from a second ago had completely vanished, replaced by a sense of premeditation, as if she had finally thrown out her final answer.
...How on earth did things get to this point?
I subconsciously stiffened and retreated. The sweltering air conditioning made my temples sweat slightly, giving one the feeling of having gone in a big circle only to return to the starting point. Why did I have the feeling that the primary and secondary roles were reversed? At the beginning, I just wanted to ask her why she did this.
"You already owe me once; do you want to owe me a second time?" Kusanagi was like a cat feigning injury, and also like a leopard staring at its prey, pressing step by step.
At the thought of the petite, fair-skinned girl lying in my arms again, my whole body began to tense up. I immediately and decisively refused: "Anything else is fine, but not this."
"Objection overruled. There is only one bed here."
"Miss Kusanagi, did you book only one room on purpose?"
"This place is quite expensive; even for me, booking two rooms puts me under pressure."
It wasn't the first day I had known this spendthrift young lady. Her speed and scale of spending money were unmatched; would she care about this mere room?
Before coming up, I saw that a standard room at this hotel required at least 30,000 yen. Bleeding a little money, I could barely afford it.
"I'm booking another room." I turned and walked away. To not give Kusanagi any room to react, I quickly walked to the door.
Unexpectedly, she didn't even put on her shoes. Her narrow feet pattered as she ran over directly and grabbed my sleeve forcefully. The force was so great that both of us stumbled, and the thing in my pocket fell out just like that.
"I was joking, you stinky blockhead! Are you really going to..." Before she finished speaking, her eyes stared straight at the thing on the ground, and she fell silent.
I looked down and almost fainted on the spot. That condom I had received had slipped out of my pocket and was lying right at my feet.
I gasped. In my twenty-three years of life, I had never felt so embarrassed! The thing I feared most had happened after all. After slicing the guy who gave me this thing into a thousand pieces in my heart, I thought fast and stepped firmly on it, freezing in place as if in a trance.
"Miss Nozawa." After a long time—so long that I felt my blood had slowed down, and so long that time had solidified—the young girl finally asked curiously: "Now it's your turn to explain to me."
"...It's like this, just now at school, someone—"
"It seems like it was only me tonight, right?" The young girl stroked her face with her slender palm, appearing to be in thought. "How do you use it?"
"..."
"Miss Nozawa is truly thoughtful." She added with a smile.
"..." My face was red enough to drip blood, and gritting my teeth, I bolted out the door.