Tenri stopped in the middle of the hallway when she heard the news. "Keima-kun...is moving?" She turned around and looked at her mom with such surprise that her eyes showed beneath the thick bangs.
Her mom was slightly taken aback, but she replied, "Yes, Tenri. There's no helping it after all - their house was half destroyed in the earthquake." She rested her chin on her hand and let out a quick sigh. "I heard you and Keima-kun played together during summer camp. It's too bad this had to happen just as you were making a friend..."
Tenri's cheeks lighted up in a faint blush at the mention of summer camp and Keima, before the bangs fell over her eyes again. She fiddled with her hands a bit, as if she held an invisible sheet of bubble wrap. "No, I guess there's no helping it," she mumbled. The ribbons in her hair appeared to droop, before she gave a barely noticeable nod and headed to her room.
The first thing Tenri did was lie down on her bed, her backpack placed neatly on the floor. The evening sun slanted through the blinds and spilled onto her bed, and when it reflected off her bangs, the light formed tiny halos before her eyes. A late summer breeze blew in, causing the lights to dance, so she rested an arm over her eyes.
When she sat up, she was surprised to find the white fabric of her sleeve a little wet. She blinked once and noticed small tears in her eyes, much like the ones that form after yawning one too many times. She rubbed them out with her hands.
For Tenri, tears usually meant a nervous clenching in her throat and a sudden urge to run away, like when a stranger approached her to ask a question or when a girl on the playground kept asking her to play. She would press her arm close against her chest, managing to stutter either "S-sorry, I don't know" or "Thank you, but not today..." More recently, she found some relief by popping bubble wrap whenever someone started to walk close, and they would usually leave her alone.
But these tears felt different, and Tenri didn't bother reaching for the bubble wrap. There was still the clenching in her throat, but it didn't make her want to run away or rack her mind for an excuse. In place of the confusion was instead a bit of an emptiness, like the feeling half an hour before dinner, or after she found out she popped the last bubble on the sheet and there were still a few hours of school left. But it was a little stronger still.
She tried to imagine school without Keima. At least three times every day, the teacher would stop and yell into his ears, telling him to put away his games. In response, and without looking at the teacher, he would press a flurry of buttons before his fingers came to a complete halt, and then he'd shut off the power and readjust his lesson book, only to bring the game back out a subject or two later. Tenri felt that she would certainly die of fright in his place. Having someone like the teacher get mad at her was the worst nightmare imaginable, but Keima just calmly did what was asked of him, and it always looked like a miracle that the world didn't end right there and then.
She also thought about the jungle gym, where Keima would sit during recess, playing his games. At first, Tenri was the only one there, which became deserted after the new sandbox was built. Then two days later, Keima realized it was the perfect place to play his games, and he eventually took up a daily residence on the other side. The first time this happened, Tenri went through an entire sheet of bubble wrap by the end of recess, in fear he would suddenly talk to her.
But gradually, she realized that he was happy just sitting there glued to his screen. Once or twice each day, Tenri even gathered enough courage to turn her head and take a glance at him. Her heart raced as she expected him to turn around and glare at her, but instead, he never seemed to notice and simply kept pressing buttons. When her gaze finally turned back towards the ground, she always felt a little warmer. In her efforts to avoid conversations, she had begun to feel a little lonely, and although Keima did not know it, his presence on the jungle gym provided her with just the right kind of company.
Tenri then noticed on her nightstand the class picture they had taken right before the break, which her mom carefully placed into a plain picture frame. It took her a while to find Keima in the picture, and she let out a small smile when she realized that the game console was what gave him away. But then she also noticed herself, hidden away behind the more lively students, and she looked away from the picture wishing she had stood out a little more. After all, it was the only thing Keima would have to remember her by.
The room suddenly felt a bit chilly, and Tenri realized the tear drop on her sleeve had all dried up, and that the sun had finally disappeared behind the rooftop of the Katsuragi residence outside her window. The blinds in Keima's room didn't close properly after the earthquake, so Tenri could make out the faint glow of a video screen behind them, an unnatural fluorescence even in the twilight. But it still comforted her as she sat on her bed watching the soft light flicker against the darkening sky with every scene change, until it was finally eclipsed by the rising moon, and night set in at last.