Chapter 270 - 270: Best Me (Part 1)

The room in the Shimizu household was dim.

Shimizu Nayotake stood before the full-length mirror.

Only a single bedside lamp was lit, its dim yellow light softly tracing the outline of her bare body.

She had been standing before the mirror for nearly ten minutes now.

Ever since she'd signed the surgical risk consent form a few days ago.

Ever since she'd come back from the hospital, she'd been like this.

The hospital admission notice lay quietly inside her pale, worn-out satchel. The date printed on it was the morning after tomorrow.

It was only admission — the surgery itself wouldn't start right away.

There would still be a full battery of physical function tests and evaluations to determine the exact procedure. The lead surgeon was still the same professor's team that had operated on her mother. Her mother had recovered remarkably well after the surgery, so by all rights, she shouldn't have anything to worry about.

Under modern medicine, the success rate for heart valve replacement surgery was over ninety-eight percent.

So logically, she shouldn't be afraid. Ninety-eight percent meant that out of a hundred people, only two would run into trouble. That was an extremely low probability — low enough to be almost negligible.

Possibly even lower than the odds of dying in a car accident just going outside.

That was what the attending doctor said, what the nurses said, even what Kagami and Yukinoshita Shizuku said. And yet...

Shimizu Nayotake slowly raised her left hand and, just as slowly, laid it against her left breast.

She could feel the chill of her own fingertips clearly against her skin.

When the cold fingertips touched warm flesh, she flinched instinctively.

Then, slowly, she pressed her whole palm flat against it.

She could feel her own heart beating clearly beneath her hand.

She closed her eyes, and her left hand drifted slowly from her breast toward the center of her chest, the pad of her index finger tracing an imagined incision line down between her breasts.

For a median sternotomy, the incision would run from the top of the sternum all the way down to the xiphoid process — roughly fifteen to twenty centimeters, splitting the chest straight down the middle.

She had seen photographs of post-surgical scars before, including her own mother's.

That kind of scar looked like a massive zipper, permanently set into the body — ugly, jagged, impossible to erase.

Her finger stopped at the very center of her chest. Then, as though gripping a scalpel, she began to slowly, gently drag it downward.

"Zzzt..."

The imagined sound of skin splitting open made her whole body shudder, and her eyes flew open.

The woman in the mirror was staring back at her.

That face — she'd looked at it for seventeen years, and it was familiar to the point of feeling like a stranger's.

There was a sickly pallor about her brow and eyes, and her lips had almost no color.

Because of her long-standing heart condition and their financial struggles, her body had always run thin — the outline of her collarbone and ribs was clearly visible, like a skeleton that hadn't quite finished growing.

But with Kagami and Yukinoshita Shizuku's help, and everyone else's.

It was like a weed that had spent its whole life growing in some dark alley, suddenly given the care of sunlight.

She had thought herself nothing but a weed — she'd never imagined she could bloom into something beautiful.

With everyone's help, her body had slowly gotten better.

With proper nutrition again, and at an age when her body was still growing rapidly, the change was visible to the eye.

Shimizu Nayotake slowly lowered her left hand from her chest and stared, dazed, at her own reflection.

Was a body like this beautiful?

She didn't know.

After all, as far back as she could remember, all she'd ever known was being bullied and mocked.

She'd never once heard a boy call her pretty, or cute.

But lately, walking down the street, she could clearly feel more and more eyes turning to follow her.

She supposed that meant she was pretty, then.

That thought made her pull her bangs back down to hide her eyes and half her face, and change back into her school uniform, which fit her a little too snugly now.

Because if she really was pretty, she didn't want anyone else to see it.

If she could choose, she wanted to be beautiful only for that one person.

Would he think she was pretty too?

Shimizu Nayotake remembered a night from last summer vacation, when Tsushima Kagami had taken her out to eat and mentioned something.

No man could ever say no to big breasts.

So surely he'd like it too.

But...

A body like this, with another scar over ten centimeters long added to it — how ugly would that be?

She lowered her head, looking down at the chest that blocked her view of her own feet, and felt a strange, wordless reluctance well up inside her.

She thought that perhaps, after the day after tomorrow, she would never again stand naked before a mirror like this.

It wasn't that she hated the idea of the scar.

For someone who got to go on living alongside her mother, she had no right to ask for anything more.

The scar — whatever happened with it — didn't matter.

What frightened her far more than the scar was something else entirely.

A ninety-eight percent success rate sounded very high.

But it also meant that for every fifty people who went under the knife, one of them would never wake up again.

She didn't know if she would be that one.

She didn't know whether, once the anesthetic needle slid into her vein, what waited for her would be the shadowless lamps of the operating room — or an endless darkness.

She was afraid of the dark.

She'd been afraid of the dark since she was little — afraid of sleeping alone, afraid of the vague shadows that filled a room once the lights went out.

If she really didn't wake up, there were still so many things she hadn't done.

Like repaying Kagami.

The moment that name surfaced in her mind, the ache in her chest grew sharper than the chill in her fingers.

Tsushima Kagami.

The person who had reached out a hand to her when she was at her most helpless — the person who had helped her, trusted her, and given her an entirely new life, with nothing held back.

She owed him too much — more than she could ever repay in this lifetime.

She had been waiting all this time — waiting for her body to get better, waiting until she could stand before him with her head held high.

To say thank you, and to prove with her actions that she wasn't someone who only took and never gave.

But now, the surgery loomed before her like a sudden cliff, and she didn't know if she could cross it, didn't know what waited on the other side.

If she didn't wake up, that word — thank you — would never be spoken.

She took a deep breath, blinked hard, and forced the thin mist gathering in her eyes back down.

Then she turned, picked up the clothes draped over the back of the chair, and began putting them on, one piece at a time.

A white cotton undershirt, her loose summer uniform, brown loafers.

Once dressed, she stood before the mirror again.

The woman in the mirror had changed — no longer the fragile, defenseless patient standing bare.

Just an ordinary girl in ordinary clothes, unremarkable in every way.

She smiled faintly at her own reflection.

Then she walked to the entryway and slid the door open.

Tokyo Big Sight — the vast glass-and-steel structure looked especially grand beneath the overcast sky.

It was another day of the summer Comic Market.

Since Seika Ijichi and her group had a Tokyo Livehouse Touring Competition performance right around now, and Yukinoshita Shizuku had gotten roped into rehearsals with them for a while,

today, aside from Seika Ijichi's three-person group, Yukinoshita Shizuku and Hiratsuka had both gone off to the competition as well.

That left the convention booth short-handed, so Nayotake had come to help.

Luckily, since Kosaka Akane and Machida Sonoko had already signed with Shueisha and had a manga to serialize now, there was no new doujinshi work from them this time — and Sayuri had simply been serving as Tsushima Kagami's assistant all along.

So this time, they only needed to sell one doujinshi title — Tsushima Kagami's — which meant five people would be more than enough.

The plaza was already a sea of people.

Everywhere she looked, people in every color of clothing, carrying every kind of flag and prop.

They packed the entire plaza, wall to wall.

The air was thick with chatter, laughter, scattered shouts, and the smell of cold air-conditioned air mixed with sweat drifting out from the venue.

A massive banner hung on the building's outer wall, printed with this year's main visual and the words "Comic Market."

Shimizu Nayotake stood at the edge of the crowd, arriving right at opening time.

She was just about to pull out the venue map Tsushima Kagami had given her, to check which zone their booth was in, when

a hand reached out from the crowd and landed precisely on her shoulder.

"Nayotake!"

She turned, and there was Tsushima Kagami, standing less than a meter behind her.

He'd dressed casually today — a white short-sleeved shirt, dark trousers, sleeves rolled up to the elbow, showing off forearms tanned a bit dark.

His hair wasn't neatly combed the way it usually was; it fell loosely across his forehead, a little disheveled, probably from running over.

There was a smile on his face, and under the gray sky his eyes looked especially bright.

Shimizu Nayotake blinked, caught off guard.

Before she could get a word out,

Tsushima Kagami spoke as if he already knew exactly what she was going to say.

"I figured you might get lost, so I waited here for you."

As he said this, he naturally took the bag she'd been carrying.

"West Hall 4 — it's huge. First-timers get lost easily."

"Follow me."

"Okay."

Nayotake nodded and fell into step behind him, weaving through the crowd toward the entrance.

Tsushima Kagami walked half a step ahead of her, his body positioned just right to shield her from the press of people.

His pace matched hers exactly.

It was the kind of small detail no one would notice unless they were looking — but Shimizu Nayotake noticed.

She looked down at the toes of her shoes, and that nameless ache rose in her chest again.

This man was always looking after her in this quiet, unassuming way.

Helping her without any agenda, without expecting anything in return.

He'd pulled her out of the mire at her most hopeless moment, given her the courage to start over.

And all she could do in return was come help sell a few books at a doujinshi convention when he was too busy.

What kind of repayment was that?

"Nayotake?"

Tsushima Kagami's voice came from up ahead, breaking her train of thought.

"Yes?"

"What's wrong? You've seemed a bit distracted since earlier."

He glanced back at her, his eyes lingering on her face for a second, his brow furrowing slightly.

"You don't look too good — are you—"

"I'm fine."

She cut him off before he could finish.

"It's just a bit stuffy with all these people. I'll be fine once we're inside."

"Then let's hurry."

Tsushima Kagami nodded and turned back around, still saying "hurry" but slowing his pace slightly.

Once the two of them entered West Hall 4,

the enormous venue felt like another world entirely — the cool air a stark contrast to the muggy heat outside.

The hall buzzed with voices, thousands of booths packed tightly in rows.

They stretched from one end to the other, out of sight.

Lines formed in front of every single booth — some short, only a dozen or so people, others winding so far they nearly circled half the venue.

Tsushima Kagami led her through the maze of booths, turning corners again and again, until they finally stopped at a booth against the wall.

"Here we are."

Shimizu Nayotake looked up. It was a modest booth, with several neat stacks of doujinshi lined up on the table.

Three people were already standing behind the booth, heads down as they arranged things; at the sound of footsteps, they all looked up at once.

Sayuri spotted her first, her eyes lighting up instantly. She set down the book in her hands and ran over.

"Nayotake! You're here!"

Sayuri had her hair tied up in a high ponytail today, showing off her smooth forehead and round cheeks. She wore a loose T-shirt printed with a cute cat design, and when she smiled her eyes curved into two crescent moons.

She looked like a piece of candy just pulled out of water — sparkling and sweet all over.

She flung her arms around Nayotake's arm and nuzzled against it, her tone carrying a hint of a whine.

"Did you come by yourself? Was the road crowded? Was the subway packed? Are you feeling okay?"

A string of questions came pouring out before Shimizu Nayotake could answer.

Beside them, another voice drawled lazily.

"Sayuri, how's she supposed to answer with you asking like that?"

Kosaka Akane leaned against the edge of the booth, fanning herself with a doujinshi, looking thoroughly bored.

She wore a black short-sleeved top and jeans, with a little pink handheld fan hanging from her neck.

Her hair fell loosely over her shoulders, giving off an air of lazy ease.

"All right, Nayotake, don't mind Sayuri's nonsense."

Kosaka Akane said, smiling, and Nayotake bowed in reply.

"Good morning, Akane-senpai, Sonoko-senpai."

"And Sayuri — the trip was fine, and I'm doing well."

Machida Sonoko poked her head out from behind the booth, a pair of round-framed glasses perched on her nose.

It was a pair of non-prescription glasses she'd specifically bought after starting college, saying they made her look more professional — whether as a future editor-in-chief or as the head of the legal department.

Her hair had grown a bit longer, growing noticeably faster than Nayotake's, whose hair had stayed short since they'd last met.

Her smooth long hair was casually pinned up behind her head with a pencil.

She'd been jotting something down in a notebook with a pen, and when she looked up and saw Nayotake, she smiled and greeted her too.

"Nayotake, thanks for coming to help."

"Come sit, don't stand — let me grab you a chair."

As she said this, she actually pulled a folding chair out from behind the booth, opened it up in front of Nayotake, and even laid a cushion on top of it.

Shimizu Nayotake looked at the carefully arranged chair and opened her mouth to say it wasn't necessary, but Sayuri had already pushed her down into it without any argument.

"Sit! Sonoko-senpai brought this cushion specially for you — she said the chairs at this venue are too hard and uncomfortable."

Sayuri said this while crouching down to move Nayotake's bag off to the side.

"Today all you have to do is sit here and take money — don't worry about anything else."

"But..."

"No buts."

Tsushima Kagami walked over to Nayotake's side too, smiling as he spoke.

"Your job is to sit, take money, count money, and then keep sitting and taking money."

Shimizu Nayotake looked up at the obvious concern on everyone's faces.

She lowered her head and murmured a quiet "thank you."

Then she heard a chorus of voices around her saying "don't mention it," "of course," "quit being formal."

Even as they exchanged pleasantries, people had already begun gathering in front of the booth.

First just a few scattered onlookers, craning their necks to look, and once they spotted the doujinshi covers laid out on the table, their eyes lit up and they came straight over to ask about price and content.

Then more and more people arrived, and within ten minutes a line of decent length had formed in front of the booth.

"It's starting, it's starting."

Kosaka Akane clapped her hands.

"Let's get to work."

All five of them snapped into action.

Tsushima Kagami handled sales and greeted customers, explaining the book's content and price, occasionally pulled into conversation by readers who recognized him.

Kosaka Akane sold from the other side of the booth.

Sayuri and Machida Sonoko handled bagging and handing over the goods,

occasionally restocking sold-out titles from the boxes underneath.

And Shimizu Nayotake, just as everyone had said, was in charge of making change.

Since most doujinshi convention items were priced at 500 yen, with a few higher-priced ones at round numbers like 1,000, 1,500, or 2,000 yen,

and visitors to the convention almost always came prepared with plenty of 500-yen coins,

in practice Shimizu Nayotake mostly just had to sit and watch customers hand over money, rarely needing to actually make change.

"Hello, that'll be fifteen hundred yen."

"Two thousand received, five hundred back — here you go."

"Thank you for your purchase!"

The exchange repeated itself over and over, until it became pure muscle memory. Shimizu Nayotake's fingers moved quickly between bills and coins.

She barely had time to think about anything else — even fear and unease got swept away in the busy rush.

Occasionally, in a lull between customers, she'd glance up at the length of the line.

It snaked on and on, winding through the aisles between booths.

"Are two thousand copies even going to be enough?"

Sayuri muttered as she restocked the shelf.

"Nothing we can do if it's not."

Tsushima Kagami answered without looking up.

"The sooner we sell out, the sooner we're free."

Even though [rouge en rouge] had announced early on that this batch had no new doujinshi from Kosaka Akane or Sayuri, and was mainly selling Tsushima Kagami's brand-new work, even more people showed up than the year before.

Fortunately, since it was all the same title this time, it was noticeably less hectic than the summer convention the year before.

At half past eleven in the morning — not even three hours since the convention opened — the last fifty copies sold out in a matter of five minutes.

When Sayuri flipped over the empty box and shook it at everyone to show there wasn't a single copy left, at least a hundred people were still in line at the booth.

A wave of disappointed sighs rippled through the crowd.

"Sorry, so sorry!"

Tsushima Kagami stepped forward immediately and bowed deeply to the customers still in line.

"All two thousand copies have sold out — I'm truly sorry for making everyone wait in line for nothing!"

He straightened up and raised his voice a little, making sure even the people at the back of the line could hear.

"But please rest assured — next month, wani will be releasing this as a standalone commercial edition. The content will be exactly the same as the doujinshi version, and it'll come with a brand-new bonus feature."

"Anyone who missed getting a copy today can pick it up in bookstores then."

A murmur rippled through the line again — the disappointment eased somewhat, though plenty of faces still showed regret.

Someone grumbled quietly, "Why do we have to wait until next month..."

A few people still lingered where they stood, as though hoping for some miracle to happen.

By the time the crowd had finally dispersed completely, it was already past noon.

Kosaka Akane plopped down into a nearby chair with a long exhale, fine beads of sweat on her forehead.

Sayuri collapsed face-first onto the table, groaning into her arms, "So tired, so tired."

Machida Sonoko took off her glasses and wiped the lenses, a satisfied smile on her face.

After bowing and thanking the last customer, Tsushima Kagami turned around and flashed everyone an "OK" sign.

"Done."

"That was way faster than expected."

"I didn't think we'd get to eat this early — I even brought rice balls just in case."

Kosaka Akane sighed as she drank some water.

"Guess that just shows Kagami's getting more famous."

Sayuri lifted her head off the table, cheeks flushed red from being pressed against her arms, eyes shining as she looked at Tsushima Kagami.

"Though this time it was totally my illustrated poster that drew everyone in right away!"

"Right, right, thank you for your hard work, Master Sayuri."

Tsushima Kagami laughed and reached out to ruffle her hair; Sayuri ducked her shoulders, grinning even wider.

Machida Sonoko finished sorting the loose change on the table, putting it into a cloth bag.

"I'll have Akane's driver take the money back later — I'll clean up here, you all go rest."

"I'll help too."

Shimizu Nayotake stood up from her chair, meaning to go help tidy the scattered wrapping bags and empty boxes.

But the moment she stood, three hands pressed her back down at once.

Sayuri's hand landed on her left shoulder, Kosaka Akane's on her right shoulder, and Machida Sonoko's on top of her head.

"Sit and watch."

The three of them said it in unison.

Shimizu Nayotake blinked, looking at them a little dazedly.

After a moment, she registered it and murmured, "Okay," sitting back down.

Watching everyone tidy up the booth, bored, Nayotake noticed three copies of the doujinshi they'd been selling sitting beside her.

They were the copies Sayuri and the others had specially set aside for her.

Nayotake looked at the cover — a girl who appeared to be standing in a graveyard, her hair tousled by the wind.

For no particular reason, a wave of sadness washed over her.

Only then did she notice the title printed on the cover — this was the first time all day, despite selling copies of it for hours, that she'd actually taken note of the doujinshi's name: "Just As We Wrote This Story Together."

With nothing else to do, Shimizu Nayotake picked it up idly.

She opened the cover.

Under Tsushima Kagami's influence, this wasn't actually her first time reading adult manga — though the only ones she'd ever read had been drawn by him.

But this particular work felt distinctly different in style from Kagami's previous manga.

This one — even she knew it was an unbelievably thick three-hundred-some pages for a doujinshi convention title.

From the very first page, a faint sadness bled through. It pulled Shimizu Nayotake in from the very first glance, drawing her deep into the story.

She didn't know how much time had passed.

"Everything's packed up. We can go eat now, Nayotake."

"Nayotake?"

Shimizu Nayotake lifted her head, dazed.

It was Tsushima Kagami calling her.

She set the manga down and answered, a little sheepishly.

"Sorry, I didn't hear you just now."

Before Tsushima Kagami could say anything else,

Kosaka Akane and the others, done packing up, came walking over.

"Let's go!"

Sayuri clapped the dust off her hands and pumped her fist energetically.

"Time to eat! I want meat!"

"Is meat the only thing you ever think about?"

Kosaka Akane shot her a sideways glance.

"And dessert too!"

"That's a completely different matter."

The group laughed and chatted as they gathered their things and headed out of the venue.

Once outside, they stood together in the plaza.

"Where should we eat?"

Machida Sonoko was mentally running through some decent restaurants nearby.

"Anywhere, as long as we can sit down."

Kosaka Akane stretched.

"I've been standing all morning, my back's about to snap."

"I know a good family restaurant nearby."

"Want to go there?" Tsushima Kagami said.

"Might be crowded around lunchtime though, so we may have to wait in line."

"A line's fine, we're not in that much of a hurry anyway."

Sayuri said, then suddenly remembered something.

"Oh right! Let's go watch a movie after we eat!"

"A movie?" Kosaka Akane raised an eyebrow.

"Yeah!"

Sayuri turned excitedly toward Tsushima Kagami.

"Kagami, hasn't Crying Out Love in the Center of the World — the one you made with the Agency for Cultural Affairs — already come out?"

"We never had time to go see it, and today's perfect!"

"I heard tons of people cried their eyes out watching it."

The air went still for a beat.

Tsushima Kagami's expression turned oddly hesitant, as if debating whether to say something.

Kosaka Akane's eyebrows arched, glancing toward him.

Machida Sonoko pushed up her glasses, a knowing smile tugging at the corner of her mouth.

Even Shimizu Nayotake blinked in surprise.

"...? Why does everyone have that look on their face?"

Sayuri looked around, puzzled.

"And here I thought there was nothing Sayuri didn't know about."

Kosaka Akane said with a laugh.

"Then again, I guess she's been so busy helping Kagami as his assistant lately."

Only then did Sayuri realize she seemed to have missed some important piece of news recently.

Beside her, Machida Sonoko explained with a smile.

"Kagami's online reputation isn't looking too great right now."

"His manga always ends happily, and his latest novel, The Sound of Waves, is sickeningly sweet — so why did the movie end up with such a gut-punch of an ending?"

"So everyone's given Kagami a new nickname."

"They're calling him the Beast of Pure Love!"

"Pfft..."

Sayuri couldn't hold back her laughter.

Tsushima Kagami's expression grew even more strained, the corner of his mouth twitching before finally dissolving into a helpless sigh.

"Well, I mean, it's a public service film about leukemia awareness."

"If some medical miracle happened and the leads just lived happily ever after, what would even be the point?"

No one listened to his explanation — they just kept laughing.

Shimizu Nayotake stood off to the side, watching them laugh and joke, and felt the corners of her own mouth curl up without meaning to.

"Then it's settled!" Sayuri declared, clapping.

"Eat first, then movie!"

"Agreed." Kosaka Akane raised her hand.

"Movie it is, then." Machida Sonoko nodded.

Everyone turned to look at Tsushima Kagami.

He glanced at Shimizu Nayotake, and she assumed he was about to ask whether she wanted to come.

Just as she was about to speak up and say "I'll come too," he beat her to it.

"What about you, Nayotake? Is your body up for it? Movie theaters run the AC really strong, and the air doesn't circulate well. If it's not good for you, we can do something else instead."

There it was again.

That same quiet, careful consideration, always so afraid of hurting her.

Shimizu Nayotake lowered her head and blinked hard.

Then she lifted her face and smiled at Tsushima Kagami.

"I'll be fine."

"I want to go."

Tsushima Kagami nodded.

"There's a theater right near the restaurant, conveniently."

"Sayuri, you all go ahead and order at the restaurant — I'll go get the tickets."

"Sounds good, let's go, let's go!"

Sayuri pulled the others along, heading straight for the restaurant.

The five of them walked across the plaza in front of Tokyo Big Sight.

A summer breeze blew past, ruffling the loose strands of hair at Shimizu Nayotake's forehead, and stirring the hem of Tsushima Kagami's shirt.

She found herself wishing time could just stop right here, in this moment.

Not thinking about the surgery to come.

Not thinking about that long scar that would stretch across her chest.

Not thinking about that small but very real two-percent chance of death.

Just this — walking together with everyone.

Eating a meal, watching a movie, spending an utterly ordinary summer afternoon.

But time wouldn't stop for her.

All she could do was cherish every step she took now, every breath, every beat of her heart.

____

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