Of Course It's A Lie

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It wasn't a thing that crept up on Nunoe. It was a thing that was present in little ways for years.

She had no memory of the first time she met Sumire. She was two. But she had a vague memory of a sunset from her balcony, which her mother said must have been from that day.

Today, Nunoe was seventeen. She was staring at her English homework, trying to do what she was supposed to do. But her thoughts always strayed back to the same old thing in the end, every time.

They were both her fault, it seemed. Both problems, that was. One was quiet and long and joyful, the over-a-decade she'd spent with Sumire. And the other was shattering and jarring and miserable, the mere second in which they were broken apart.

When Nunoe was first able to think for herself, entirely, she was about ten or eleven. She started to feel wronged in all sorts of little ways by Sumire. She never brought them up, though. She felt they were silly little things. Sumire was her best friend. She was Sumire's only friend. She couldn't hold such petty things against her.

As they passed through the years, the smallest, slowest changes had ended up painting a drastically different picture. Sumire was now the one comfortable and with many friends, while Nunoe's panic at her increasing workload cut her off from other people. Even now, she still remembered how Sumire had never offered to help her. She'd say she was just as dumb as Nunoe and laugh it off. And Nunoe would laugh with her.

Nunoe went along with Sumire in so many little things she didn't really like. But she never made herself truly dislike it because Sumire was the one who liked it. Certain words, certain behavior just upset Nunoe in such small ways. She found herself handling conversations with Sumire the way one would handle walking through a minefield, and wondered if this was normal for best friends.

She was not Sumire's best friend. She probably never had been. Yet Sumire had made her a wooden keepsake box for her eleventh birthday. She had lent her so many video games and manga and books that had to be hastily returned to Maeda-san, Sumire's mother, in the end. Her last gift to her was a bracelet. It had probably cost a lot. It was made of beautifully crafted wire and metal and clay beads, and Nunoe had only ever worn it thrice before laying it, too, to rest.