V1C2...

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Part 11

"W-What do you think...?"

About 30 minutes later.

I took her around to the stores

I had my eye on and showed her the clothes I thought she would like.

After much painstaking work, I

managed to come up with a number of "Maybe this one".

"... I thought you were a person

with good taste, but I guess I was wrong."

It was cut off very easily.

"I'm sorry... about that."

Even if you say so, I have

never picked out clothes for girls, so there is nothing I can do about it.

I didn't even know what the

so-called basic set was, so I tried to pick out some patterned T-shirts that I

thought would be easy to wear, but that area seemed to be generally out of the

question.

"I'm just so terribly

ill-fitting in T-shirts."

I don't think that's true, but

this is all about how she feels, so I don't know.

So, all of the clothes I

brought several items of clothing had a series of outs at the first sight, but

there was finally one item that caught my eye.

"I guess this one's still

better..."

I picked up a light pink

cardigan.

Kawasegawa seemed to prefer

relatively calm colors, so I chose something that could be worn lightly at work

or in private ... or so I thought.

"I'll take that"

"Y-Yes..."

I was starting to feel somewhat

defeated, but anyway, she seemed to have decided on the clothes she was going

to buy.

(What was the purpose after all

...)

I was tempted to ask, but

thinking that was some kind of test in itself, it seemed better to keep quiet.

After paying the bill, we

walked out onto a large deck that juts out from the second floor of the

department store.

Since it was just noon, we

decided to have lunch at a street-side restaurant. I was wary that the price

might be too high because of the prime location, but I was relieved to find

that the price was reasonable for lunch.

However, the situation of

having lunch with a girl alone on a holiday was nerve-wracking for someone who

had never been involved in such a situation.

(I wonder what Kawasegawa

thinks about it...?)

I was curious to see what she

looked like, but she just had her usual "normal expression" on her

face.

Originally, she was not a

person who was overly emotional. She sometimes looked a little miffed, but it

was not hysterical and within the bounds of common sense.

"What's wrong, something

happened?"

I was looking at her so

intently that she gave me a quizzical look.

"Ah no, nothing. I'm sorry

I bothered you."

I apologized anyway, thinking I

had made her uncomfortable,

"You don't have to

apologize for that anymore."

"S-Sorry..."

I piled on the sorry and she

ended up staring at me.

(But, well, what's she trying

to do...)

Kawasegawa Eiko is the Head of the 2nd Development Department, which is considered the core of the company,

and it was rumored that she worked so hard that she did not even have days off.

On an occasional holiday, I

would have thought she would have either taken her time to rest her body, or

made firm plans and carried them out.

And yet, here she is, having

lunch in front of me calmly.

Unlike when she came to the

office, she was dressed in soft, everyday clothes and had a calm expression on

her face. The tense, uptight look she always had was nowhere to be found.

Yes, how to say it... She

seemed very feminine.

(Now that I think about it, she

was pretty drunk when she drank...)

From her relaxed profile, she

now appears to be releasing her tension.

Despite the fact that I'm with

her, I'm glad she's feeling some peace of mind.

"... I'm sorry. I really

am."

Suddenly, Kawasegawa apologized.

"Eh, why?"

"I mean, suddenly inviting

you out like this, it was your day off, and you probably had plans or something."

You were concerned about such a

thing?

"No need to worry, I mean,

I was home alone anyway."

When I told her this, was she

relieved,

"Then, fine..."

Shaking the cup of cafe latte, fuuh,

she breathes out.

"I told you not to

apologize to me, but that's selfish."

"Yeah, so no need for you

to apologies either."

"Understood"

Kawasegawa nodded and looked

across the deck toward the station. It was daytime in Shinjuku on a holiday,

and a huge number of people were passing through the streets.

"So many people"

"Because it's Shinjuku. Well,

I'm used to seeing it by now."

Nara, where my parents lived,

was not a very crowded place, but since I had been in the Tokyo metropolitan

area since I started working, it was not unusual.

"I'm not used to it. Even

in college, I was in a very rural area."

"He~e... that's so."

Come to think of it, I had

never had this kind of personal conversation with her.

I'm more than a little curious,

so I'll talk about it.

"Kawasegawa, is there

anything you liked when you were a student?"

"When I was a

student?"

"Yes, something about fun,

sports, music, that kind of thing."

It was supposed to be a light

topic.

But unexpectedly, Kawasegawa

looked very serious,

"I love movies."

She said so, looking straight

ahead.

"I've seen a lot of them,

from the classics to the more recent ones, and I've even filmed some of them

myself."

"He~e, a movie, huh..."

Even though it is natural to

have some kind of interest in the visual arts because of this kind of work, I

thought that making films was quite an in-depth hobby.

"Because both my dad and

my sister did that kind of work."

...... I see, that seems to be

the result of gifted education.

"So I thought I would do

the same, but sadly I'm not very talented."

She said she did everything she

could, working on films as if they were only for her time as a student. And she

said she completely abandoned that path when she graduated.

"I was just good at

preparing and setting things up, so I'm still able to work somehow."

Kawasegawa smiled wryly and

sadly.

It seemed as if she had already

given up, but there seemed to be something still remaining in her smile.

Because I understood it.

When you love something and

can't give it up, but have no choice but to pretend that you have given up on

it, that's the kind of face people make.

"I don't... think so"

"Eh......?"

Kawasegawa turned around.

"I mean, Kawasegawa is

working really hard, and the results are showing..."

Despite her lack of talent or

lack thereof, she narrowly escaped the barriers and landed a development job at

a video game company, where she even became a leader at a young age.

Maybe it's beyond the pale to

say that someone capable of that much effort would give up on something they

loved so much.

"So I don't think it's

right to give up now"

I can't tell her specifically,

but it's something that very...

"...What a waste"

Kawasegawa looked a little

surprised.

"S-Sorry, I just felt like

I had to say something..."

Out of nowhere, I thought I

might have pulled it off, but,

"Thank you"

She thanked me in a happy voice,

"If only there had been

someone like you in my classmates ...... then maybe a lot of things would have

been different."

Kawasegawa smiled very gently

as she said this.

It's like nothing I've ever

seen before...

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