How to Unravel Moe Sleeves

“This person likes me the most. I know that.”

She started to get drunk. Pop, another female classmate, and I had been waiting for these words. She, who claims to have dated Pop back in high school, always says this when she drinks with us. To us, it feels like a signal that things are beginning.

I don't dislike hearing these words. I don't know if he really likes her the most, but it's been over twenty years since we graduated high school. Yet, here we are, sharing drinks, and she is still conveying her version of the truth to us.

The female classmate gives us a look. It’s the kind of gaze that makes you want to ask, “Where did those big eyes come from?” Her large eyes convey emotions more than they form expressions. She looked very happy. Pop, as if his moment on stage had arrived, raised his voice, raspier than it had been all day.

“So, how many months did we date again?”

She responds with a smile.

“Two months.”

We have lived for over forty years and have had various experiences. It’s been nothing but big waves and small waves; we haven't drifted away, but we are still floating, completely unable to ride the waves. Even so, there are people who cherish these “two months.”

I don't know what kind of “two months” those were, but since they can still laugh together after more than twenty years, I think it might have become the best “two months” by spending twenty years on it.

“My daughter was doing the moe sleeve thing.”

As I chimed in to her sudden change of topic, I asked.

“What’s a moe sleeve?”

The female classmate demonstrated a moe sleeve for me. Only her fingertips were visible from the sleeves. The topic quickly shifted away from moe sleeves, but my mind couldn't let it go. I want to ask someone if this is because I'm drunk or if it's the moe sleeve effect.

“Come to think of it, you guys seem to have really high energy when you're not drinking with us.”

I couldn't answer because I don't know which night she's talking about—every night we spend together is high energy.

Pop replied calmly.

“You two just don't know our true selves.”

At that moment, what came to my mind was a woman who was very much my type, wearing moe sleeves. She was sitting right in front of me. The sweater with the moe sleeves also covered her lower body, so I couldn't tell what she was wearing underneath, or if she was wearing anything at all. I understood that if there ever came a time when I would know, it would be when I had succeeded in wooing her. It might be a reward.

A bit of her fingers were visible from the moe sleeves. Her fingers were beautifully manicured, and she looked awkward, as if she couldn't even hold her sleeves properly. Were those her real nails? Or were they press-ons? It wasn't an unnatural kind of natural. Her fingertips seemed to plead, as if they were used to being addressed. It made me want to give in to the temptation and say, “I’ll hold that for you,” while touching her fingers.

I judged these fingers to be beautiful, but I immediately became anxious about whether they were truly beautiful. The fingertips, so pale that the nail polish stood out, were certainly beautiful. If I were to touch them just like that, those fingers might eventually trace from my hand to my arm, and then to my body, perhaps with a slight flush.

Yet, they also looked like fingers that knew nothing.

I wondered if I could truly come to love these fingers. I wondered if these fingers were seeking only me in their purity. I felt as though I were being confronted with an innocence that knew nothing of good or evil. At the very least, if it were in a world of imagination, I would want them to be entirely mine. And I would prefer fingers that knew more.

I imagined a different set of fingertips once more. They were fingers that showed their age, with no nail polish on them. Yet, they were fingers that knew they were being watched down to the very tips. Rather than being beautifully adorned, they were captivating. I do not know what I was being drawn into. Because from the moe sleeves, only the first knuckles were visible.

However, the fingertips, knowing they were being watched, seemed to be pleading with me to clearly imagine how they were moving beneath the moe sleeves and how they were trying to convey their intentions.

I found a single loose thread on the moe sleeve. It must have been an inevitable thread. I was being tested. I decided to seriously unravel this thread. I could not overcome the curiosity to see what was hidden. The woman, who was very much my type and was facing me, watched the entire process with downcast eyes while entrusting her moe sleeves to me. Her mouth might have held a smile that suggested she was letting her guard down, but if I had the capacity to notice such a thing, I would never have chosen to unravel them in the first place. Going through life without noticing anything and taking the long way around is my life.

I unraveled it carefully so as not to cut the thin thread. It was beautifully woven. If I were to cut it, this woman, who was very much my type, would likely disappear. I had to face the wall of time that had gone into making this sweater, however long it took. I had come to want to see her true form once it was unraveled.

"Which one is the true form, I wonder?"

Pop was being pressed for an answer.

"That is something no one knows."

I don't know. As I watched Pop answering that he didn't know, I felt as though I were about to see everything regarding the threads of the woman in my mind, the one with the moe sleeves who was very much my type.

The moe sleeves, which had been in the shape of a sweater, were steadily approaching her true form as I carefully unraveled everything. I had thought that the more time and care I took to unravel them, the closer I would get.

I finished unraveling the moe sleeves.

The hands that appeared were beautiful. Rather than opening her palms wide, she relaxed them slightly, forming a shape as if holding something, casting shadows on her own hands. The bright fingertips looking out from the darkness seemed to know everything. The things she had hidden were full of scars. Perhaps she had been hurt so much that she could not hide the scars. But it was a hand that was enough to make me proud, knowing that I was the only one who had reached that point by unraveling everything.

"No one knows what is hidden. That's why you can't know someone's true form."

Pop is talkative. Just now, right beside him, I had seen all of that hidden truth in my mind. I wanted to teach him that if you take the time to unravel it, you can reach a person's true form.

The woman in my mind, who was very much my type, looked at the hands exposed from the moe sleeves and smiled at me. Perhaps she wanted to hide her fingers once more; she extended her sleeves, which were no longer there, and lowered her hands as if to hide her fingertips.

From the cuffs, a hidden silver bracelet fell out naturally. The sliding bracelet took it for granted that it would stop at her wrist, and it suited those hands very well.

It was fitting.

It was a hand that knew how to hide its scars, heal them, and shine even brighter because of that bracelet. It surely meant that it had been unraveled and given to her by someone else's hand. It was natural for the bracelet to exist on that hand. It was beautiful.

How did this woman, who was very much my type, get this bracelet? And how does one take it off? Is it even possible to take it off?

It felt like something I couldn't handle. I realized the depth of a woman who showed me an even higher level of a truly beautiful smile.

"You were right after all."

I nodded along to the pop music, took a vigorous gulp of my highball, and decided that from now on, it would be better to just like women on a superficial level.

Perhaps the truth is only as deep as you want to know.

No one can ever truly know anyone's real self.

What are you talking about?

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Thank you already for the inexplicable fun.

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