Chapter 124
Love is a feeling of the heart, an impression. It is first a product of real-life experiences, then replicated in memory. If someone feels love, they’ve either directly experienced it in reality or something in the present has awakened a stored impression of love from their memory.
Minami Yuuki was the key to Nakajima Reina’s heart. The boy’s silhouette unlocked the storehouse of love within her, and a tidal wave of emotions surged forth, filling her mind. This joyful impression should have brought her happiness, but her greed tainted that happiness with a trace of torment.
The simulated impressions in memory can never compare to the ones felt in reality. Just as the happiness from a lover’s photograph can never rival the joy of being with the lover in person. Nakajima Reina understood this all too well. The happier she felt from the impressions being awakened, the more she longed for the true source of that happiness—the kiss of Minami Yuuki.
She held a Pocky stick in her mouth, refraining from chewing it, imitating what Minami Yuuki had done when they first came to the garden.
First, she lowered her head, then glanced sideways at the boy. Finally, mimicking his previous actions, she shook the stick up and down with her teeth.
Still, the boy made no move. Was he deliberately teasing her? Nakajima Reina grabbed Minami Yuuki’s arm, her moist eyes gazing up at him, on the verge of tears.
“That’s not allowed,” Minami Yuuki said, gently stroking her cheek. “The doctor specifically instructed that your heart needs to rest for a week.”
He took the stick from her mouth and bit into it himself. “So, you’ll have to wait for a bit longer.”
“Just a little,” Nakajima Reina pleaded, pressing herself against Minami Yuuki’s side, looking at him with imploring eyes.