After much thought, in the end, I still didn’t send a single message, and instead drained my phone’s battery down to just ten percent.
I hadn’t found time to charge it these past few days.
Lying in bed at home, excluding the time I spent sleeping, I always clutched my phone tightly in my hand—not because I was playing around or numbing myself with videos, but because I didn’t want to miss a single flash of inspiration that crossed my mind.
I was afraid that if I wasn’t careful, I’d forget them all.
But… even though my phone’s notes were filled with over six thousand words, I still couldn’t send a single effective reply to Gu Fan’s greetings.
As time passed, I grew more afraid to open Gu Fan’s contact, worried that I might suddenly lose my head and reply with some strange, nonsensical words.
I had been stewing over this for several days. If I treated Gu Fan’s waiting so casually, I wouldn’t easily forgive myself.
After spending a dull morning in the church, I returned to the courtyard and picked up the school bag I’d left on the bench, slinging it back onto my shoulder.
Although I was no longer attending school, my mother happened to have the day off, so to avoid her asking questions, I had to stay out during the day.
Wandering alone through the sparsely populated outskirts, I gripped the shoulder strap of my bag, feeling the heavy weight of all the various messy women’s items inside.
After a while, I realized I was walking in a different direction than home again.
“Heh, looks like no chance to eat at home today.”
I muttered bitterly, inwardly annoyed at my own neuroticism. I had planned to come home for lunch and save unnecessary expenses.
But my cramped brain was still tangled up with all sorts of jumbled thoughts, leading my body to make such a foolish decision.
Still… not going home wasn’t so bad. If I ran into my mother there, the atmosphere would be so awkward I wouldn’t even be able to taste the food. Better to skip lunch altogether and call it dieting.
I looked down. Because of the two fat rolls blocking the view, I had to use my hands to measure my small belly, only relaxing once I confirmed there was just a tiny bit of extra flab.
Though the innate traits of a catgirl meant it wasn’t easy to gain weight, I couldn’t let my guard down—maintaining my figure was a tough, long-term task.
Standing still, I sniffed the scent of dried grass wafting through the suburbs and, deciding to make the best of it, turned and headed into the other side of the city.
Without Gu Fan’s company, time dragged on sluggishly. Every time I picked up my phone and lit up the screen, I couldn’t help but sigh, wondering how only a few minutes had passed.
The price of being overly sensitive was that I could keenly feel every second tick by. The biting cold of late winter mixed with my restless heart, churning my whole body into a mess.
And I had no remedy to soothe it. My usual cure—sleep—only brought dreams where the demon called “anxiety” ambushed me, devouring me from the inside out, chewing me into bits, then spitting me back out.
So when I woke, my mind still couldn’t clear, and a sluggish fatigue wrapped around me like a heavy shroud.
Crossing the noisy commercial street and avoiding the crowded east city market, after nearly half an hour of walking, I stopped at the shopping center Gu Fan and I had visited a few times before.
Did I want to buy something?
Running through my list of current necessities, I realized that aside from Gu Fan’s love, there was nothing I truly needed.
As for the skincare products I had wanted to buy a while back, I had already purchased them online.
Thinking of that, I remembered I had only used them two or three times and hadn’t taken care of my skin these past few days.
Sure enough… I was the kind of person who only said she’d keep trying, but the moment a little setback appeared, I’d immediately give up, making up excuses about feeling down or not being used to it to deceive myself.
Though I’d used skincare products long ago, those had all been bought by my mother or passed down to me. The instructions were written in Japanese or English, so I barely understood them.
On top of that, my mother never explained how to apply the products, how much to use, or whether to use them in the morning or at night.
She just coldly said, “You have a phone, can’t you look it up online yourself?”
That stung, so I stubbornly put those products aside out of spite.
Only a few months ago, after my relationship with Gu Fan deepened, I started worrying that I’d become a shriveled old woman in the future, so I reluctantly picked up the difficult routine of skincare again.
Reaching the side of the shopping center, I used a nearby glass display window to tilt my head and puff out my cheeks.
Reflected in the glass was a young catgirl with black hair and red eyes mimicking my actions, her tufts of hair dancing lightly in the breeze.
“Hmm…”
Not bad. Even though I hadn’t put much effort into makeup or skincare these days, my skin hadn’t deteriorated much. For a catgirl, youth was definitely the best time to rely on—after all, aging wasn’t easy to see.
Taking advantage of the moment, I smoothed out the wrinkled hem of my skirt. After looking around to make sure no one was watching, I discreetly tugged at my heavy corset through my coat.
I’d rushed out too quickly today and didn’t notice that the old top I wore was a smaller size, making it hard to breathe.
Satisfied that I was ready, I nodded and headed inside the shopping center.
Just inside, the large tree that had once been decorated with Christmas lights had been transformed with bright red Spring Festival couplets, lanterns, and scrolls.
Unlike the pale tone of Christmas, this tree looked vivid and festive in red.
If Gu Fan were here with me, I’d definitely pull him over to take a photo together.
Imagining that, I couldn’t help but picture what the photo would look like. Would passersby think we were a couple? Or even a blissfully happy married pair?
Though I wasn’t really interested in the Spring Festival, I had to admit that standing beneath the tree, reading the blessings and hopes for the future written on the couplets, and seeing the wish notes stuck to the trunk—those couples’ plans and dreams gradually infected me with the atmosphere.
“How wonderful…”
So full of life. Too bad I was the only one standing here. Gu Fan was probably still in the classroom, eating and chatting and playing board games with those pretty girls…
I recalled that two days ago, an anonymous sender had sent me a text with a photo of students playing Werewolf inside the auditorium. Gu Fan sat in the center as the judge, and that Miss Shiratori, the one I hated most, was looking at him with such an ambiguous gaze.
My teeth clenched unconsciously. Frowning bitterly, I turned and walked away from this Spring Festival tree that had nothing to do with me.