"Floating" High School Girl Ibuki Shimizu, Taking Off. #07

Chapter 7: Free Floating Altitude: 13.5m, Floating Force: 342NF

Still, Something to Anchor To

"...Ah. Finally, my head... has cleared the school building..."

Ibuki Shimizu gently bumped her forehead against the edge of the rooftop and muttered in a dry voice. Her "school attendance" for the day begins there.

Being indoors was no longer possible.
The floating force had become too strong, and being pressed against the ceiling had reached its limit.
Now, Ibuki spends her days tied to the support pillar of the flagpole in the schoolyard, or tethered to the "floater mooring pillar" on the rooftop.

She was instructed to stay home on windy days.
Commuting that depends on the weather can no longer be called a normal life.
Even so, Ibuki came. To school.

"...It's high, isn't it?"

The view of the schoolyard looking down was like a diorama.
Volleyballs bouncing during PE class moved up and down like sesame seeds.

Her uniform skirt billowed in the wind, and Ibuki held it down with one hand.
She was wearing hot pants underneath.
She had long since moved past any sense of shame.

"...Were skirts always this vulnerable to the air...?"

Lunch break.
Kazusa came up to the rooftop.

“Ibuki, I bought you a crepe.
They said that place, you know the one, opened today.”

“Wait, that place that went out of business!? The one I really wanted to go to!”

Swaying in the wind, she reached out and took the crepe.
She took a bite, cautiously but happily.
It was a little lukewarm, but it was still sweet and gentle.

"...Yeah, it's delicious. Enough to make me cry, seriously."

“Don't cry. If you cry in the sky, the droplets will fall down, you know.”

The two of them laughed.
But deep within that laughter, Ibuki noticed something.
That the corners of Kazusa's eyes were slightly moist.

"...I wonder how many more times we'll be able to eat together like this."
“Stop it, don't say things like that. You're coming tomorrow, too, right?”

"...Yeah. I'll come. Because I'll come..."

On her way home that day, the wind had picked up.
Creak... creak... the mooring rope groaned.
The belt tied around her arm tightened, and her wrist went numb.

I can see my mother on the ground, near the school gate.
She came to pick me up today.
Even if I reach out, I can't reach anything.

"...Hey, I wonder how long this will go on."

I asked the sky, not to anyone in particular.
Of course, there was no reply.
Only the wind blew from deep within the sky, as if it were an answer.

13.5 meters—there is no place for me inside the building anymore.
I have already drifted quite far from a "normal" life.

But Ibuki still didn't look up at the sky.
What she was staring at was the ground.
—As if she still had something left there.

The after-school sky was beginning to be dyed a pale gold. The shadows of the school building stretched out, and the shouts from club activities reached me faintly. That sound felt like proof that I was still connected to the ground.

But then, the wind changed direction once more.

The rope creaked. Ibuki looked up. There was nothing left to block her view.

"...I feel like if I go any further than this, I won't be able to come back."

My own voice, whispering that, was swept away and vanished into the wind.

But, even so.

"I'll stay here a little longer. After all, I have... school tomorrow, too."

The wind blew. The rope swayed.

Ibuki remained floating in the sky—yet she kept looking toward the ground.
Believing that something that tethers her to it is surely still there.

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