As she took the coat, her fingertips brushed against the texture of the wool, and that soft, warm sensation traveled up from her fingers all the way into her heart.
"What are you spacing out about now?"
Yukinoshita Shizuku said from beside her.
Tsushima Kagami instantly changed his expression and laughed.
"I wanted to try feeling what it's like to say that line too~"
After hearing him out, Yukinoshita Shizuku ignored him.
She walked off to one side and started picking out things to match.
She took a light apricot-colored knit top off the rack, along with a dark brown plaid skirt.
She folded them neatly and placed them into Shimizu Nayotake's hands.
Then she gave her a gentle push.
"Go on, try them."
As Shimizu Nayotake walked into the fitting room holding the pile of clothes, she glanced back over her shoulder.
Tsushima Kagami was leaning back on the sofa set up outside the fitting rooms, head lowered as he flipped through one of the magazines provided for customers.
Yukinoshita Shizuku stood in front of the rack beside him, holding a sweater and studying it, as if she were thinking about something.
She turned around and drew the fitting room curtain closed.
Inside, three of the walls were mirrors, and she stood in the middle of them.
She looked at the girl in the mirror, the one holding a bundle of clothes.
That girl wore a school uniform, her hair a little messy, her eyes still red—she looked utterly wretched.
Slowly she slipped off her uniform jacket, folded it, and set it on the stool to one side.
Then she picked up the oatmeal-colored wool coat and pulled it on.
The size fit perfectly.
As though it had been tailor-made just for her.
She stared at herself in the mirror, dazed for a long while.
That coat, worn on her, made her look like a completely different person.
A person who didn't have to rush off to a part-time convenience store job after school, who didn't have to worry about her mother's illness, who could stand beneath the lights of the Isetan and laugh without any burden at all, just like the other girls.
She took the coat off again, put on the knit top and the skirt.
Then she pulled the coat back over them.
Light apricot paired with oatmeal, gentle as a cup of coffee with milk stirred in.
The plaid skirt came to just above the knee, revealing a stretch of calf in black tights.
The whole look was clean and bright, as if she'd stepped straight out of a magazine.
She stood before the mirror and turned halfway around, the hem of the skirt lifting faintly.
She tried to remember the last time she'd bought new clothes.
Was it when she started high school? Or middle school?
She could no longer recall.
But now, standing in this fitting room bathed in warm white light, looking at the girl in the oatmeal coat reflected back at her—
she suddenly felt: so I can be like this too.
She drew a deep breath and poked her head out from behind the curtain.
She called out softly toward Yukinoshita Shizuku.
"Shizuku..."
Yukinoshita Shizuku turned to look at Shimizu Nayotake, who was calling her.
When she walked over and her gaze fell on her, her eyes brightened.
Then she waved to Tsushima Kagami at the side.
Tsushima Kagami came over too and looked at Shimizu Nayotake in the fitting room.
"See, doesn't that look great?"
Shimizu Nayotake saw that Tsushima Kagami was looking at her too.
She'd meant to show it off to him openly and confidently.
But in the end, embarrassed, she still tugged the skirt down to cover her legs.
Tsushima Kagami noticed Shimizu Nayotake's discomfort.
She was probably used to the school's long skirts, he thought.
Not accustomed to a skirt like this.
So he went over to the rack at the side.
He spotted a long skirt in the same style.
Then he picked up a beret and a pair of half-boots and handed them to Shimizu Nayotake.
"Here, try changing into these."
"Okay..."
Shimizu Nayotake took them.
She drew the curtain closed.
The sounds of changing clothes came from inside again.
After a while, Shimizu Nayotake finally pulled the curtain open.
Dressed now in the long skirt, wearing the beret and stepping in the half-boots, Shimizu Nayotake had a little less of her earlier radiance, but a little more of an intellectual, cool elegance.
"?"
"This suits you even better!"
Yukinoshita Shizuku praised from the side as well.
The previous outfit had looked lovely.
But this one clearly matched Shimizu Nayotake's temperament more.
"As expected of the Adult-Manga Sensei."
Yukinoshita Shizuku bumped Tsushima Kagami and laughed.
The moment this came up, Tsushima Kagami got fired up.
He said proudly:
"You can question my character, but you can never question my taste!"
"Then why is it that every time you come clothes-shopping with me, you just sit there reading magazines?"
Yukinoshita Shizuku suddenly said.
"Ahaha."
"Because I respect a woman's choices."
"And I trust your taste."
Yukinoshita Shizuku paid him no mind and circled Shimizu Nayotake once more, looking her up and down.
Then she reached out, helped Shimizu Nayotake fold the collar right, tugged at the cuffs, stepped back, and narrowed her eyes to look her over.
"Nayotake, do you like it?"
Shimizu Nayotake looked at herself in the mirror again.
In the end she nodded at Tsushima Kagami and Yukinoshita Shizuku.
"Then this is the one."
Once Yukinoshita Shizuku had said it,
Tsushima Kagami started heading for the register.
"Wait!"
Shimizu Nayotake hurriedly grabbed hold of him.
"This is too expensive!"
The moment Shimizu Nayotake thought of all those English brand names she'd never heard of—
and that string of numbers on the price tags—
she really couldn't bring herself to agree.
"Didn't we already settle this just now?"
Yukinoshita Shizuku said.
"But..."
"Then once you've earned money in the future, you can pick out an outfit for me when we go shopping."
Yukinoshita Shizuku continued to coax her.
Shimizu Nayotake still wanted to say something, and then she looked at Tsushima Kagami waiting to the side.
She thought once more of what he'd said outside the Manga Research Club.
In the end, she still quietly nodded.
Seeing Shimizu Nayotake nod,
Tsushima Kagami finally walked up to the register, drew a card from his wallet, and handed it to the clerk.
Smiling, the clerk took the card, swiped it, printed the receipt, and wrapped everything up—the whole process took no more than two minutes.
Shimizu Nayotake stood to the side, looking at the paper bag printed with the brand's logo, and a tangle of emotions too complicated to name welled up inside her.
In it there was gratitude, there was unease, there was joy, and just a little bit of...
just a little bit... that faintly burning thing she'd been fighting so hard to press down.
"Don't just stand there."
Yukinoshita Shizuku handed her the paper bag.
"Put it on right now."
"?"
Shimizu Nayotake was taken aback for a moment.
"You buy clothes to wear them, right?"
"You're not going to take it home and be too reluctant to wear it—
then leave it in the closet as some family heirloom, are you?"
Tsushima Kagami said.
Shimizu Nayotake was amused into laughter by his words, and the corners of her mouth finally curved into an arc without a trace of concealment.
She went back into the fitting room and changed into the new clothes again.
She packed her old school uniform back into the bag.
"Let's go."
Tsushima Kagami turned and walked toward the escalator.
When the three of them came out of the Isetan, the wind outside was a little colder than it had been when they went in.
But Shimizu Nayotake, wearing that set of new clothes, didn't feel cold at all.
She walked between Tsushima Kagami and Yukinoshita Shizuku, the three of them side by side, heading in the direction of the station.
As they passed a bakery glowing with orange light, Tsushima Kagami suddenly stopped and bought three fresh-out-of-the-oven croissants, one for each of them.
The bread was still warm, its crust crisp, its inside soft, the taste of butter melting slowly in the mouth.
Shimizu Nayotake took a bite of the croissant, and crisp flakes fell onto her oatmeal coat; she hurriedly reached to brush them off, afraid of dirtying this new outfit.
The train ran on through the night, the city lights beyond the window streaming across the glass in ribbon after ribbon of light.
The three of them sat together—Tsushima Kagami leaned against the partition and dozed with his eyes closed, Yukinoshita Shizuku lowered her head to read the manga Tsushima Kagami had brought, and Shimizu Nayotake sat by the window, watching the scenery rush backward outside.
Through the canvas of her school bag, her fingers touched the outline of the envelope inside that held the recipient's certificate.
She could almost still feel a faint warmth from it.
When the train reached the station, the three of them got off and walked along that familiar little road near the danchi.
The streetlights stretched their shadows long—three shadows side by side, sometimes overlapping, sometimes drawing apart.
____
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