Source
https://kakuyomu.jp/works/16817330655556357602/episodes/16817330658377225625
“……I feel like we’ve had this kind of exchange before.”
The moment Juri heard Asahi’s words, she became aware that her heart skipped a beat.
When he said “before~”, was he referring to the last time they all went to the pool together, or was he recalling a memory from a long time ago……?
As Juri looked at Asahi in a daze, she suddenly turned her head.
“Senpai? Is something wrong……?”
“No, nothing. ….M-more importantly, can I try a few things?”
Suddenly being spoken to outside of her consciousness, Juri panicked as she looked at several clothes and turned her gaze towards the fitting room. Then, Asahi nodded with a gentle smile.
“Yes. You don’t have to worry about me at all.”
“……Of course I’d be worried.”
Juri, even unconsciously, murmurs and enters the fitting room.
……It’s impossible not to care. After all, today is a match day for Juri.
The curtains of the fitting room are closed tightly, and Juri exhaled all the air in her lungs in one gulp, suppressing the pounding of her chest.
Reflected in the fitting room mirror was her not-so-pretty self in a cute outfit.
He would never know how much determination it took for her to put on this outfit today.
She was scared, embarrassed, and anxious……. She wanted to run away many times before she got to the meeting place.
But she mustered up the courage to meet him.
And one word he said to her took away all her fears.
A warm feeling slowly spreads deep in her chest.
It was a warmth she had felt long ago.
◆ ◆ ◆
Tachibana Juri has had a boyish personality since she was a child, and rather than playing make-believe with girls, she was the kind of girl who would play fetch with the boys.
By the time she reached the upper grades of elementary school, Juri, like the girls around her, had become interested in fashion, and although she had previously preferred to wear clothes that were easy to move around in without worrying about being fashionable, she began to want to wear cute, girlish clothes appropriate for her age.
One day, Juri asked her mother to buy her a cute plaid skirt.
But when she wore that favorite skirt to school, everyone laughed at her.
“Wow, she’s wearing a skirt !”
“It doesn’t suit you at all.”
“Male girl…”
The boys she had been playing with were amused and made fun of her.
Now that she thinks about it, a child of that age would have teased her because her friend, whom she had been playing with for a long time without being conscious of the opposite sex, came with a skirt on out of the blue.
However, Juri was so shocked by this that she has never been able to wear skirts since then.
And while her childhood friends Hanabi, Futaba, and Nagisa were wearing cute clothes, Juri kept wearing plain clothes, pushing her feelings aside.
One day, a boy said to Juri, who was looking at a fashion magazine.
“Don’t you wear one-piece dresses like this, Juri?”
The boy asked, pointing to a beautiful model in a fashion magazine.
“…..No, I don’t think it would look good on me. You know, my hair is too short.”
“That doesn’t matter, why don’t you just wear what you want to wear?”
“But…..”
“I think Juri looks good in any clothes she wears. It’s cute.”
“C-cute…..!?”
“Yeah, there’s no need to lie about how you feel.”
His one word changed Juri, he changed her.
She still doesn’t have the courage to wear the clothes she likes….but thanks to his one word, she can now wear skirts that she has been avoiding for a long time.
It may be just that, just a small thing.
But for Juri, it was a very big step forward.
◆ ◆ ◆
“…………”
Juri gulped as she looked at her reflection in the mirror.
A short dress with an elegant atmosphere based on white. The clothes are made of soft and fluffy material with frills around the arms, and the rounded collar is characteristic, and the clothes are sprinkled with girlish cuteness here and there.
She immediately tried on the clothes she had just found, but she was not sure if they looked good on her or not.
In fact, she was even embarrassed to show these clothes to anyone.
After all, she thinks she should stop wearing this outfit and wear something more plain…..Juri shook her head as if to shake off the feeling of weakness she was feeling.
Juri made a decision.
She will not lie to herself in front of him.
“I-I’ve changed my clothes……”
“H-how is it? Do you like it……?”
When she called out, she heard Asahi’s voice swaying uneasily from behind the curtains.
Maybe he felt lonely waiting alone because there were many female customers around him.
Thinking it was bad to keep him waiting like this, Juri made up her mind and cautiously opened the curtains.
“H-how do you like it……? I don’t know if it looks good on me…..s-so let me know what you think.”
Though she said that…..but when she thought he was going to give her his impressions, she wanted to run away.
When she turned her gaze to Asahi, he was dumbfounded and silent.
For a while, there was an uncomfortable atmosphere in the air.
In the meantime–
What if it’s weird….?
I guess it wasn’t for me after all…….
I shouldn’t have done anything strange…….
Such bad thoughts were all over her head.
Eventually, Juri becomes unable to endure the silence and opens her mouth first.
“D-don’t say anything–“
“I think it looks really good on you.”
The moment she heard those words, she felt a warmth slowly rising in her chest.
Juri opened her mouth to deceive her face, which seemed to loosen up if she let her guard down.
“……You’ve been doing that since a while ago.”
“Eh, s-sorry. I don’t really understand the details, so I’m going to give you my honest opinion……”
“I’m just trying to make fun of you.”
“H-hey. That’s not nice……”
“I’m sorry. The truth is, I was very happy when Asahi told me that it looked good on me…….”
She spoke her honest feelings.
It was her bad habit to try to deceive things immediately.
At least for now, she wanted to convey herhonest feelings.
“Thanks.”
Saying this, Asahi scratched his cheek embarrassedly.
“I-I was just expressing my opinion.”
“That may be true for you, but for me, it’s something special.”
“Special…..?”
“Yeah. ‘Don’t lie to yourself about your feelings.’ Thanks to that, I changed. If it weren’t for those words, I would still be suppressing my feelings.”
Even before Asahi lost his memory, he probably would not have remembered such a small thing.
But that’s okay. His casual remark had changed me.
That fact alone was enough.
“So, thank you.”
I had always wanted to thank him for that time.
I’m sure he would have forgotten about it.
–You may not remember it, but it was the day I confessed my feelings to you. I thanked you properly, just like now. I also told you that I loved you. I didn’t want to lie about my feelings.
But now, I can’t tell him I love him.
Because it would cause him trouble.
So, for now, I’m going to lie about my feelings.
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