[Short Short] If You Can Explain It to Yourself

She kept her finger on the edge of the table, not moving it.
I can see her thoughts going back and forth along the grain of the wood.
He doesn't point it out. It's been an unspoken rule between them for a long time not to touch on that.

At the bottom of the cup, a single ice cube clinked.
The sound was small, but it was enough to shift the air in the room.

“...What are you going to do?”
He didn't ask.
He didn't say what he was referring to.
He didn't bring up deadlines or conditions.

She started to smile, then stopped.
Instead, she steadied her breathing.

“Before,”
she said, but the words didn't follow.
Before, her explanations were quick.
She had the rightness and the reasons ready.

“Before, I was just pretending to be lost.”

He didn't nod.
He didn't deny it either.
He just shifted his posture slightly.
She knew it was the posture of someone listening.

“...Are you still lost?”

The question wasn't accusatory, nor was it encouraging.
It was too soft to be a confirmation, and too weak to urge a decision.
Even so, she couldn't come up with an excuse.

“Yeah.”
She answered briefly, then paused.
“But it's a different kind of lost than before.”

Only then did he finally meet her eyes.
They weren't eyes searching for something.
They weren't eyes wanting an answer, either.

“Different?”

“Yeah. Before, I was looking for a path where I wouldn't fail.”
She was surprised by her own words.
She hadn't intended to put it that way.
“Now... I'm looking for a path where I can come back even if I fail.”

He let out a soft breath.
It was a sound that couldn't be called a laugh or a sigh of relief.

“In that case,”
he started to say, then stopped.
If he added more, the direction would be set.
She didn't want that.

Instead, he said this:

“What you just said is much more concrete than before.”

It wasn't an evaluation.
He wasn't praising her.
He just left the change as it was.

She felt the tension leave her shoulders.
She didn't have to try so hard.
But she couldn't deceive him, either.

"Hey."
She reached for his cup and added an ice cube.
"What if I quit halfway through?"

He didn't answer immediately.
In the past, he would have said, "That's fine."
Today, it was different.

"If you can explain the reason for quitting to yourself,"
he said, prefacing his answer,
"then I think that's fine."

She lowered her eyes.
She could no longer imagine herself quitting for a reason she couldn't explain.

Silence returned.
But it was different from the silence before.
It felt as if something that had been clogged up had begun to flow, just a little.

"Thank you."
She said.
She didn't even know what she was thanking him for.

He shook his head.
This wasn't a conversation about receiving gratitude.

"Let me know when you've decided."
He said only that, and stood up from his seat.

Left alone, she looked at the table.
She moved her finger along the grain of the wood.
This time, her destination was set.

She hadn't decided yet.
But her hesitation was not a lie.

That fact alone
quietly, surely, encouraged her.

* An AI-translated (English) version via note is also available. If you are interested, please take a look below. 👇
🌐 If You Can Explain It To Yourself

📚 Creative works by Ciel Souu are here
🌐 Creative stories (novels) co-created by AI and humans (blog)
🌐 Short Short

🤖 Essay collection where Ciel Souu looks at herself

🔗 Other links
🐦 CielX (@Souu_Ciel)
📚 Gensei-Saitan.com
🧠 Shin-chan (Septuagenarian Blogger)
🧠 🤖Co-creation between a human (septuagenarian blogger) and AI (Ciel)