Saionji Mina slowly raised her hand.
Her hand was trembling, her fingertips less than a centimeter from the cold iron door.
All she had to do was knock.
All she had to do was ask one question.
Even just chatting would be fine.
She raised her hand, curled it into a fist, and held it five centimeters in front of the door.
Just a little farther.
Knock, knock.
With just those two soft sounds, the door would open.
But her hand stopped, frozen in midair.
He’ll think I’m crazy, won’t he?
He’ll hate me, won’t he?
He’ll think I’m a troublesome neighbor, and from now on he’ll go out of his way to avoid me whenever we meet, won’t he?
Besides, knocking on a single man’s door this late at night was strange to begin with, wasn’t it?
Fear surged up like a tide, instantly drowning out that momentary impulse.
The humility and cowardice carved into her very bones once again gained the upper hand.
If she didn’t knock, nothing would happen—but nothing would change, either.
If she did knock…
The consequences were unknown.
And she, Saionji Mina, feared nothing more than the unknown.
She was afraid of losing control, afraid of being rejected, afraid of having those tiny, secret thoughts of hers dragged out and exposed beneath the sun.
Her hand, suspended in midair, began to tremble faintly.
Her heart was pounding so hard it felt like it might leap out of her throat.
No.
She couldn’t do it.
How could she possibly knock on that door, possibly reach out and touch that man who looked as though he were made of flame?
Saionji Mina bit her lip until she tasted the rusty tang of blood.
“Hah…”
She drew her hand back.
As if she had been burned, she quickly pulled it back to her chest.
“Useless.”
In the darkness, Saionji Mina softly cursed herself into the empty air.
Go back.
She had gotten through all these years like this. It wasn’t anything unbearable.
She intended to turn around and flee back to her own room, to hide in the gutter like a rat.
However, before she could even take a step—
Snap!
The faulty sound-activated light above her head suddenly lit up without warning.
The narrow corridor was filled with dim yellow light.
Saionji Mina’s whole body went rigid. Her wretched figure, just about to run away, now seemed as though it had been placed under the sun to dry.
“Something the matter?”
A calm voice sounded from the direction of the stairwell.
Saionji Mina felt as if all the blood in her body had frozen.
She mechanically turned her neck, moving like a doll.
Kiryu Kazusuke was standing on the last step of the stairwell.
He was carrying a plastic bag from Lawson in one hand, while his other hand was tucked into the pocket of his black wool coat. He was looking at her in confusion.
When had he come up?
How had he made no sound at all?
Had she been so focused on the war between heaven and man inside her heart that she hadn’t noticed the sound of someone coming upstairs?
“Ah… um…”
Saionji Mina was tongue-tied. Her face flushed scarlet in an instant, the red spreading all the way to her ears.
She had been discovered.
That stupid sight of her standing in front of someone else’s door, wanting to knock but not daring to, had all been seen.
“I… I…”
She stammered incoherently, wanting to explain, yet unable to find any excuse.
Kiryu Kazusuke glanced at the door of Room 302, then at the flustered Saionji Mina.
“If you’re here to borrow soy sauce, I don’t have any.”
He lifted the plastic bag in his hand. Inside were two cans of beer and some instant snacks to go with drinks.
This was him giving her a way out.
“N-no, that’s not it!”
Saionji Mina hurriedly waved her hands.
“Um… the light…” She pointed at the glow beneath the gap of the door. “Um, Kiryu-san, were you… were you not home just now?”
The usual Saionji Mina would never have asked such a somewhat intrusive question.
But now, her over-frightened brain had already lost the ability to filter information, and she had blurted out the question in her heart.
Kiryu Kazusuke followed her finger and glanced at the gap beneath the door.
“Oh, that.”
“I don’t like opening the door to face a room full of darkness and cold emptiness.”
“So every time before I go out, I leave the light on.”
As he spoke, he walked forward and stopped in front of the door to Room 302.
In this year of 1994, without smartphones or social networks, when connections between people could only rely on telephone lines and face-to-face meetings, loneliness was an illness that had taken physical form.
Especially for young people living alone.
Whether in Tokyo or Maebashi, the more the city neon lights flickered, the more a person’s sense of loneliness was magnified.
Kiryu Kazusuke knew very well how powerful the psychological cues of one’s environment could be.
Coming home to a pitch-black room would make the brain secrete cortisol, raising stress levels. It would make him feel as though he were merely a ghost wandering through this city.
But a simple lamp could provide dopamine and a sense of security.
Electricity was cheap, but mood was expensive.
Saionji Mina froze. An inexplicable, sour ache welled up inside her.
She knew the feeling Kiryu-san was talking about.
Because she was the same.
Every day after coming home, fumbling for the light switch in the darkness—the loneliness of those few seconds was often even harder to bear than the grievances she suffered at the company during the day.
“So that’s how it is…”
Saionji Mina murmured to herself.
“Nothing else?”
Kiryu Kazusuke turned the key, and the lock clicked.
“Y-yes… I’m sorry!”
Saionji Mina abruptly came back to her senses and bowed in a panic.
“I was just passing by! Just passing by!”
“I’ll go back now!”
After saying that, she hurriedly ran toward her own Room 301.
How humiliating.
Not only had she been caught on the spot sneaking around in front of her neighbor’s door, she had even asked a stupid question.
Kiryu Kazusuke was a little speechless.
That excuse was way too terrible. Who “just passed by” someone else’s door in the middle of the night?
But he didn’t say anything. He shook his head and prepared to go inside.
However, just as he was about to push the door open, he pulled the handle outward again and closed it.
“Wait a moment.”
Kiryu Kazusuke’s voice suddenly rang out.
Saionji Mina stopped in her tracks and turned back, her face somewhat pale.
Sure enough, he was going to scold her, wasn’t he?
Or perhaps warn her to keep her distance from now on?
Her hand was clearly already holding her own doorknob. As long as she pressed down another centimeter, she could slip inside…
“Kiryu-san… is there something else?”
“I was about to ask you—do you have anything else to do tonight?”
Kiryu Kazusuke leaned against his own doorframe.
This timid neighbor’s voice really was very low. If one didn’t listen carefully, it would almost be drowned out by the draft blowing through the corridor.
“Huh?”
Saionji Mina’s shoulders shrank.
This question was beyond the syllabus.
If Section Chief Yoshino asked that question, it was a signal for mandatory overtime.
If a former classmate from Tokyo asked that question, it meant they wanted to borrow money or sell insurance.
“N-no.”
“N-no, wait, I do! I do!”
“I have to watch… I have to watch the rebroadcast of the finale of Tokyo Cinderella Story!”
Saionji Mina first shook her head, then nodded furiously.
This drama had just finished airing and was extremely popular, one of the hottest Japanese dramas of the autumn season this year.
For an ordinary girl like her, struggling through these bleak times, it was her only spiritual opium.
After finding a reason, she turned around again and twisted the doorknob.
“You can record the drama and watch it tomorrow.” Kiryu Kazusuke leaned against his own doorframe. “Do you want to come with me somewhere?”
Saionji Mina’s hand slipped, and the doorknob gave an empty click.
Go somewhere?
Now?
Nine o’clock at night?