The summer evening air immediately provided some much-needed cooling as we left the dormitory. It was also good for my burning cheeks and my annoyed ear, but it was still far too warm for that. Or maybe it was just that my thoughts couldn't tear themselves away from how close Satoru had just gotten to me.
Oh, in general throughout the evening.
Why did he suddenly do that?
It's okay, I admitted myself that I'd gotten closer to him in the last few days, had tried to get a little closer and tested my limits, but him? He had to exaggerate again.
But funny, why hadn't he backed down? Instead, he tried to turn the tables on me. Or was I just imagining things? Oh, he'd probably just enjoyed annoying me. But then why the dinner?
I let out a sigh.
"Is everything all right?" my companion asked me attentively next to me, immediately clasping my hand with his.
"Yes-a, why?" I asked him the counter question in surprise, because it was nothing.
"Because you were just snorting so melancholy."
He had noticed that? Had I been that loud?
"That loud? No, it's nothing. I was just lost in thought."
"Understandable after our first bath together."
Flashing, I looked up at him now. That little runt.
"Yes, too," I shared some of my thoughts with him. He didn't need to know everything.
As we walked down the long, wooded road into the center of Tokyo, I unconsciously looked around, enjoying the last red rays of the sun that had fought their way through the many trees.
They also fell sporadically on the flowers that grew magnificently by the roadside. An unusual butterfly caught my eye.
Snow-white, with a purple spot on each of its rear wings. Wasn't it getting too late and too cold for butterflies at this time of day? Coming across these wondrous creatures at night promised to be a very bad omen. What's more, it reminded me of someone.
Of Uraume.
She also had such snow-white chin-length hair, adorned with a crimson stain that could be seen from her sides across the back of her head. It was ironic that I had to think of her. It had been a few years since I had last seen her. How had she fared in the meantime?
As soon as we were in close proximity to the butterfly, it flew away with powerful strokes. I could have sworn that it lost tiny particles of turquoise mist. Residues that I saw when Satoru or even Megumi and Kento used their curse powers. God, all the good spirits were leaving me now, weren't they? I was probably just imagining it.