Three days after the fake confession.
I had already stopped walking to school with Miko, but by then, I wasn't even walking home with her either.
I didn't talk to anyone in the classroom.
The classmates around us had apparently recorded the rooftop confession on video, bringing it up to laugh about.
Ayano in particular went out of his way to spread the word even to people who hadn't been there, turning it into a running joke.
It would be a lie to say I had no feelings about that whatsoever, but honestly, I didn't care. Getting dragged into a circle of people I looked down on and fighting on their level felt even more irritating. So, for the time being, I just left them alone.
The problem was Miko.
She tried to speak to me over and over, only to hesitate and back away every time.
In the end, we finally spoke after school on the third day, a Friday.
"W-Wait!"
On the way home from school, she came running after me, overtook me, and cut in front.
"...Subaru, you're still mad, aren't you?"
"Are you asking if I'm mad?"
When I answered, Miko's shoulders gave a frightened shudder.
I was completely dumbfounded.
She shouldn't have even needed to ask.
After all the time we had spent together, she had betrayed me like that.
I would have to be out of my mind not to be furious.
"N-No, that's not it. I didn't mean it like that."
"Then why did you do it? You wouldn't make a fake confession unless you were making a fool out of me."
"Ugh, b-but I lost the punishment game, and the flow of things made it so I had to confess to someone... So, I chose you. I thought if it was you, you'd forgive me once I apologized, and I wasn't trying to make fun of you or anything..."
"Huh? That's what I'm calling making a fool out of me. Did you think nothing you did could hurt me?"
"Ngh... I'm sorry."
Miko murmured, on the verge of tears.
Yet it didn't move me in the slightest.
Just as she had admitted a moment ago, she probably believed I would let it go if she simply apologized. I could see right through that motive.
What I wanted wasn't an empty apology like that.
What she had done wasn't something that could be smoothed over with simple words.
It had shattered the time and trust we had built together into pieces.
"I'm going home."
"N-No, please..."
"You're the one who started saying you wanted to act on your own because you wanted to look mature, right? See ya."
I walked away without looking back once.
Even when the weekend arrived, my anger still hadn't cooled down.
Messages had been coming in from Miko since morning.
Wondering what they could possibly be about, I checked, only to find an absurd invitation asking if I wanted to go to some shop together.
Was she trying to test the waters with harmless small talk because things were awkward, hoping to find a chance to apologize?
Naturally, I ignored them.
Her words, her attitude, her gestures—I couldn't feel a shred of sincerity in any of it.
Under these circumstances, there was no way I could bring myself to forgive her.
"You haven't been hanging out with Miko-chan lately. Did something happen?"
"Nothing, Mom."
"Really?"
I shook my head to my worried mother.
This was an issue between Miko and me.
I didn't think our parents needed to get involved.
With no desire to go outside, I was spacing out in my room while message after message arrived from Miko.
'Would a different shop be better?'
'Could you still be asleep, by any chance?'
'Are you feeling sick?'
'Why aren't you replying to me?'
'Can I come over to your house right now?'
I merely turned her down, telling her that coming over would be a nuisance so she should stop, and tossed my phone aside.
◇
Looking back on those days, I took a sip of my coffee.
Miko, sitting right in front of me, was still keeping her eyes averted from mine.
Thinking about it now, I don't believe she realized the gravity of the situation back then.
I had been hurt far more deeply than she could have imagined, and I suspect that somewhere in her heart, Miko was still optimistic that things would somehow work out.
Well, perhaps you could say our bond as childhood friends had been strong enough for her to feel that way.
Besides, we were only first-year middle schoolers at the time.
We had still been elementary school kids just a few months prior, so looking back now, I can accept that our immaturity was inevitable.
Even if someone had asked me back then to explain specifically what kind of apology I wanted from Miko, I probably would have struggled to answer.
That was how angry I was, and I was in no state to be reasonable.
"You said you won't apologize because you don't want to be forgiven, right? Then, from the time we parted ways until today, has there been any point to that choice?"
"...I don't know."
"Listen, Miko. Refusing to seek forgiveness and refusing to apologize are two completely different things. That's just your ego."
"...Ngh, I can't."
Here we go again.
If I were still in middle school, I would have stormed out of here in a fit of rage.
However, I've grown since then.
Thanks to meeting Nakina and the others, my perspective on a lot of things has changed.
So, I'm going to make a genuine effort to understand.
I want to know her true intentions—why she's digging her heels in like this.
I'm sure she's spent her whole life picking the wrong choice between two options.
Just like back then.
For Miko, who had been keeping her distance while hoping time would fix everything, the turning point came on the day Ayano came to pick a fight with me, if I recall correctly.
Through that series of events, she finally learned just how furious I really was.
Even so, she made the wrong choice there, too.
And while I was at it, didn't I socially erase Ayano from the community of our classroom?