Blue Illusion

As the gentle mountain skirts were vaguely reflected, the night air turned into streamlines.
Without needing to strain my eyes, I could see lonely, withered leaves that had drifted away from the grove swaying faintly. The premonition of finding a quiet lake beyond them also arrived, and the rustling of leaves and the ripples began to whisper to the moonlight.
However, looking up at the night sky was suppressed, and the subtle words brushing against my ears became clear, making me feel that the landscape was somehow refusing to fade into dusk.
I am standing in front of a painting drawn by moonlight. If memories of determining the night air that permeated even the alleys on an autumn evening cross my mind, the impulse to dash out to the front door also returns, and disappointment filled with curves is called back, accompanied by the dull sound of a grandfather clock behind me.
I learned the time behind a smirk. Because the world closed off by the stage curtain is revealing a dream.
Perhaps imagining the star-filled foothills, a figure resembling an alien appeared hazily in the center of the painting; what did the season that forgot the sound of insects intend to supplement, releasing types of specters and monsters from the soil, and causing the chilly mood to disintegrate in mid-air?
Those molecules crystallized again to create a strange form.
I have never experienced a white night, but I have memories of the blueness of the night.

In the photos of students taken by grade, there were sometimes missing faces.
The memory of just before Midojima-kun transferred away had also vanished from Shizuo. However, including the impression he received upon his transfer, several scenes did not lose their vivid outlines, much like distant sea spray, recalling the brightness of light rays shining through a small window, and transforming into the afterimages of graceful movements.
Trying to feel affection for the spring sunshine when Kinuko, a relative he lived with, disappeared, trying to blink many times, feeling a warmth like drowsiness while shivering at the evil hand that dammed the flow of daily life, and feeling that since the four seasons were passing by according to the calendar without being plagued by desperate thoughts, and that inconspicuous hope was still a breath of life, and that he had been on good terms with sweet tastes before knowing helplessness—all of this softly wrapped Shizuo's feelings and made that day's moment shine.
There was no resistance to acknowledging that the weight of the buzz occurring in the classroom was not tilted only toward the girls. Everyone's eyes were shining in front of Midojima-kun's appearance. He was tall and had an elegantly refined face.
And because he had an active personality, was good at sports, had an atmosphere like an upperclassman, and actually told mature jokes, several boys imitated Midojima-kun's hairstyle within a few days, parting their bowl cuts in a seven-three split. The influence of the stylish transfer student who was not intimidated immediately worked on the other students, and Shizuo's classroom drifted with a brilliance like when a new game was discovered.
What was strange was that despite such admiration, no student had visited his house.
Shizuo felt he somehow understood the reason. It was because Midojima-kun was too cool, and everyone couldn't approach him on their own; a strange shyness was getting in the way.
Shizuo had already learned the secrets of the territory drawn by lines regardless of gender. The more Kinuko's dream was an illusion, the more her real figure became borrowed, creating more distance than necessary, and because there were times when he would show unwilling attitudes or take unexpected actions to shorten that distance, the anguish that sprouts in a child's heart also led to a bottomless swamp, and he thought it was natural that the first step taken was cautious.

Cloudy then sunny; if daily classes and cleaning are monotonous, does the dazzling sun that shines suddenly hold elements of a miracle?
No, at least the scene that Shizuo and his two classmates saw must have been under the light rays that have not changed since ancient times; although a slight hesitation had certainly occurred, it was not protected enough to form a dramatic moment. The sun was also burning a clear shadow behind Midojima-kun.
“Yeah, it’s not just us.”
The voice that echoed in Shizuo's heart was released in a tone that played around as if it were natural. And when the realization that he had jumped into the world of play occurred, he was secretly following the fascinating transfer student.
He chuckled while moving on tiptoe while sticking to the wooden fence, hid his body in the shadow of a utility pole, and once he knew that servile emotions were shaken off and the residue was particles of curiosity standing on their heads without needing to be confirmed, his desire for excitement was easily stirred and entangled in the chain of days.
“Oh, what’s the matter with you guys?”
Accepting that there was no malice in Midojima-kun's surprise, Shizuo could not suppress the laughter he had stored in the bottom of his stomach, and
“My house is in the same place as his, too.”
He blurred it with words that sounded like they were tacked on and burst into laughter.
“Oh, is that so? My place is just around the corner ahead.”
After saying that, without moving to a suspicious expression,
“Won't you stop by? You guys are my first visitors.”
He invited them in his usual mature tone, so the two of them looked at each other with expressions confirming that their amusement was being carried to a different kind of mood.

One cannot always easily climb the mountain ridge that seems to be the peak of joy. Since I cannot remember Midojima-kun's exact face, I feel the desolation of having peeked into a temporary dwelling of desire under a cold theorem, unable to reach the scene beyond, and I feel as if I am overlapping with the same time as the familiarity before a naked body.
I do not intend to confuse it with the excitement from foreplay to climax, but because the strange form wandering inside this painting started walking as expected, the night will not be painted over.
It was transparent from afar so that the blue painting would not let childhood innocence know of its obscenity.

Midojima-kun had one older sister, though I forget if she was a middle schooler or a high schooler.
Her face doesn't come to mind either, but when I was playing badminton in the garden mixed with the sister and brother, there was a time when she stopped responding while letting her eyes swim into the void as if possessed by a monster. What on earth was she looking at and conveying?