Seishun Buta Yarou Series - Volume 11 - Chapter 2.4

4

November 6—the day of the school festival—arrived too fast for him to grow impatient.

In that time, Sakuta only went to college once: Wednesday, November 2. The only thing of note was asking Miori about her mixer.

“Were the guys actually hot, then?”

“On the way to the shop, a Halloween parade cut me off, and I lost track of Manami. So I never actually found out!”

“You should pay more attention,” Sakuta said, like he hadn’t done the same thing.

Miori also didn’t carry a phone.

“I was all down for the meat, at least. There was supposedly a lot of it.”

The day after—the third—the college was closed for a holiday. On the fourth, all classes were suspended in the name of festival prep.

The festival itself started on the fifth, but he spent that working.

So when he finally made it back to campus, the festival was in full swing. A very different vibe.

Through the heavily decorated gate, the path through the gingkoes was jam-packed with people and stalls lined both sides.

People here to have fun, students running the booths, voices calling out, mascot characters carrying signs around—it was immediately apparent that there were far more people here than during the usual morning rush.

Very much a festival crowd.

Just getting down that path took a while.

The Sweet Bullet concert was on the outdoor stage—the festival’s main venue.

Encore included, they performed seven songs. Six were Sweet Bullet originals. The last was a famous Touko Kirishima number—“Social World,” the song Uzuki had covered for the commercial.

The student MC got a bit carried away and started ad-libbing, taking questions from the crowd, and calling for an encore they hadn’t planned, but the girls all rolled with it and gave the crowd what they wanted.

When it was over, Sakuta poked his head in the classroom that served as their greenroom and found Ranko Nakagou grumbling, “Who does that MC think he is?!”

And the others were laughing.

The Sweet Bullet members only got a short break; then they had to move to the auditorium. There was a (male) beauty contest, and they’d been asked to hand out bouquets and congratulate the victors.

And since the concert had run long, they didn’t even get time to eat. They left the greenroom, saddling Sakuta with a shopping list.

On it were requests from each of them. Yakisoba, bubble tea, takoyaki, chocolate-covered bananas, and tacos.

He was under strict orders to have that all back here before their presenter job was done.

To that end, he started making the rounds of the stalls and was currently in line at the taco stand. Mai was with him, holding the yakisoba.

Kaede and her friend Kotomi Kano had been tasked with acquiring bubble tea and chocolate bananas. They were lined up in front of some other stall.

“So much bigger than high school culture festivals.”

Mai had a cap pulled down low but was looking around with evident curiosity. She was wearing a hoodie and jeans with sneakers—a tomboyish streetwear look.

Nothing like what the Mai Sakurajima wore in all the magazines or on TV, so not many people recognized her.

And for today alone, the campus was filled with sign-carrying mascots and colorfully costumed barkers.

An infinite number of distractions.

Anyone dressed normally wouldn’t get a second glance.

In front of them was a big man in a judo outfit, and he was drawing all the attention. It was likely he was recruiting for the Judo Club.

He paid up and stepped aside.

“Welcome.”

When Sakuta and Mai moved forward, they found a girl dressed as a nurse. It was the same costume design Ikumi had worn on Halloween.

When Sakuta saw who it was, he smiled. Saki Kamisato scowled back at him.

“I’ll take some tacos,” he said, undaunted.

“It’s Azusagawa!”

“So it is!”

Behind Saki were the girls he’d met at the mixer, Chiharu and Asuka. They were all wearing the same nurse costume. And their eyes had turned toward Mai.

“The girls from the mixer,” he said, figuring introductions were in order. “My girlfriend. You may have heard of her.”

“Sh-she’s real!” Chiharu gasped, hand over her mouth.

Mai smiled and bobbed her head.

“Did you see that? She bowed at me!”

Chiharu was now clutching Asuka’s sleeve.

“That was for me,” Asuka said.

“Order up.” There were two male students behind the girls, bringing over the tacos: Takumi Fukuyama and Ryouhei Kodani, both from the mixer, and both on taco-creation duty.

“You’re not dressing up?”

“Did you want to see me in a nurse outfit?”

“If I had a phone, I’d definitely have taken pics.”

“Thank god you don’t,” Takumi grumbled, adding a squirt of salsa as a finishing touch.

Sakuta paid up, and Mai took half the tacos. That left both her hands full.

Sakuta took the rest of the tacos, and one more nurse emerged from the back of the stall. Ikumi.

“Everything good?” she asked, talking to Saki.

Then she spotted Sakuta and looked shifty.

His eyes were on her right arm. It was in a sling. That didn’t seem like part of the costume. With her hand bandaged up like that, there was only so much she could do to help.

“Nice timing, Ikumi. Where’s the extra salsa?” Asuka asked, turning around from the customer she’d been helping.

“In the cooler.”

“Oh, Ikumi, we’re low on mayo!” Chiharu called.

“I brought some out from the back,” Ikumi said, putting down an industrial-sized container.

“Almost outta cabbage, too,” Takumi added.

“The yakisoba stall said they’d share.”

Even as Ikumi spoke, another college girl came in with two cabbages. “Cabbage delivery!” she said, handing one to Takumi and one to Ryouhei.

“Anything else low?”

“Should be good. You hit up the flea market, Ikumi,” Saki said, speaking for everyone. “We’ve got enough help with these two,” she added, pointing at the boys.

At that, Ikumi said, “Thanks for coming on such short notice,” and headed off toward the flea market.

“What happened to Akagi’s hand?” he asked Saki, watching Ikumi go.

“Tried to catch someone who stumbled on the station stairs.”

“When?”

“Wednesday…?”

So right after she’d talked to Sakuta. Her hand had been fine then.

He wanted to ask more, but Saki’s attention was already on the next customer. No time to stop and chat.

They moved away from the stall, not wanting to block the line.

“You can go after her,” Mai said.

Meaning Ikumi, of course.

“I’ll take these to the greenroom.”

“I appreciate that Mai, but…”

He was glancing at his own hands. They were filled with the tacos they’d bought for themselves.

“What about the tacos?”

He couldn’t exactly run after Ikumi carrying them.

“Go ahead,” Mai said. Then she opened her mouth, like he should just push one in.

They were no bigger than a gyoza, so he went right ahead.

“Mm, that’s good,” she said in between bites.

“Then off I go,” Sakuta said before scarfing down his own share. “You’re right—it is good!”

Savoring the flavor, he headed after Ikumi.

Sakuta caught up with her just outside the campus flea market. She was resting on a bench in the shade, watching the flow of festivalgoers.

He came up from behind and sat next to her, leaving a space between them.

“……”

She didn’t visibly react. She must have expected him to follow. And to ask about the arm.

“Being injured is so boring,” she said, eyes on the flea market. “They said they didn’t need my help, either.”

She mustered a rueful smile.

“Nobody wants to be the baddie and put someone injured to work.”

“Oh, so they weren’t just worried?” she said, laughing.

“It’s easier if you look at it my way.”

“That depends on the individual.”

She might be rejecting the idea, but she seemed to have lightened up a little. His stare soon made her shift uncomfortably.

“When I showed Chiharu pictures of my Halloween costume, she said we absolutely had to use these for the taco stand.” She plucked the hem of her apron with her uninjured hand. “Saki and I were against it.”

“I’m here to ask about the arm, not the rockin’ duds.”

There’d been some distance between them at the stand, but seen up close, Ikumi’s arm was in a sling, and the bandages were wound tight, keeping her wrist immobilized.

Her efforts to distract him thwarted, she tried to smile, eyes still on the flea market.

A fall breeze swept between them. Dry leaves danced in the air. Bright-yellow gingko leaves. Ikumi caught one and finally spoke.

“Think I’m an idiot for ignoring your warning?”

“That’s your dominant hand, right? You getting by?”

It seemed like it would cause a lot of problems.

“I can see why you snagged Mai Sakurajima,” she said with a laugh. She spun the leaf by the stem.

“I warned you, but you’re dumber than you look, Akagi.”

“Saki’s taking notes for me, so I’m okay there. It looks bad, but it’s just a sprain. It’ll be healed in a week, and everyone I know is a budding nurse.”

She was playing it off like a joke.

Their conversation wasn’t quite adding up. She was intentionally not letting it. Not wanting to give him control.

“I hear you caught someone on the stairs?”

“……”

He tried asking outright, but she didn’t answer and just played with the gingko leaf like it was a propeller.

“Azusagawa, do you remember what you wrote in your junior high graduation essay?”

When she finally did speak, her question came out of nowhere.

“I don’t. I threw my graduation album out when we moved.”

And he’d never once cracked it open. He’d put it in the trash when he was cleaning his room, and it had likely been incinerated somewhere and was now in its final resting place at the Minamihonmoku landfill. In a few years or decades, it would be part of some reclaimed land project.

“Well, I remember it.”

Judging by the expression on her face, it wasn’t a fond memory.

“……”

“I remember my own, and yours.”

She spoke softly, the look on her face never changing.

“Pretty sure mine’s worth forgetting. I doubt I wrote anything worthwhile.”

“Oh, but you did.”

“Yeah?”

“I mean, you wrote that you’d like to reach a place of kindness.”

“……”

“Well? Have you, Azusagawa?”

Her eyes demanded an answer.

“Have you, Akagi?”

“……”

“Have you become the ideal self you imagined in junior high?”

“The prattle of a child. Not even worth laughing at.”

“Too soon to act like you’re all grown up, though. We’re still students.”

Neither Sakuta nor Ikumi was directly answering the other’s questions. They weren’t really talking. They were using lots of words but never managed to get on the same page.

“We’re in college now. We can’t still be kids.”

“Is being a hero a grown-up’s dream?”

“You’d rather Red Riding Hood got hurt?”

“I’d rather you didn’t, Akagi.”

“……”

Ikumi fell silent, staring down at her arm.

She was saying the right things.

And Sakuta wasn’t saying anything wrong.

But they were at odds.

“I’ll be more careful.”

“But you’re not gonna stop.”

“……”

Ikumi didn’t answer. Her silence was her answer. What was it that had made her so insistent on this? He couldn’t figure it out. Was there something compelling her to act like this? Even if it was just out of the goodness of her heart, there had to be a deeper motive.

“Look over there,” she said, pointing at a corner of the flea market. “The kids the volunteer group is teaching.”

He followed where her beautifully pale finger was pointing and spotted some junior high kids. Two boys and a girl, working a stall.

“All of them were forced out of their schools.”

They were talking. One boy was goofing off, the other laughed at him, and the girl was telling them both off. They all seemed like they were having fun; no one would’ve guessed they had to drop out just by looking at them. But that’s how it went. All it took was one little thing, and you’d find your feet stuck to the ground one day, refusing to head into school. Sakuta knew how that went.

“They’re selling the pottery they made together. Go check it out.”

Sakuta glanced back at Ikumi and found her rising to her feet.

“I’ve got somewhere to be,” she said before heading toward the ginkgo lane. He knew where she was bound.

He’d seen the tweet.

Weird dream. A boy tripped and fell by the clock tower. Cried a lot. During the school festival at the Kanazawa-hakkei campus. It was exactly three o’clock. This one of those prophecy dreams? #dreaming

Ikumi had probably seen it, too.

“No point heading to the clock tower,” he said, before she got too far. “Nothing’s gonna happen.”

“……”

Ikumi stopped in her tracks, not turning around.

“The thing about the boy tripping and falling? I wrote that. Total fiction.”

“……”

He could read nothing from her back.

Was she mad?

Had he pissed her off?

Maybe she was just frustrated.

Or did it go beyond that to outright disgust?

But when she was finally facing him again, it was none of the above.

“Well, good. We don’t need any crying kids,” she said, smiling.

“……”

It was his turn to fall silent.

Her reaction was exactly what you’d want from a hero.

No anger at being tricked.

Not mad at him.

Just relieved that nothing would happen and no one was gonna get hurt.

He was completely unprepared for that.

He’d hoped the trick would help him figure out where her heart lay, what was going on with her. Thought it might clue him in as to why she was helping people.

That’s why he’d used the hashtag to bait her here.

But the result?

He had no clue what was going on in her head.

Ikumi was being the perfect hero.

And that was why it disturbed him.

What would lead someone to feel relieved that no one got hurt instead of getting angry after falling for a dirty trick?

“You really shouldn’t do that,” she said gently. Like she was reprimanding a naughty child. “We’re in college now.”

“Yeah. We’re in college now,” he echoed. He wondered how old you had to be before you stopped believing in heroes.

Then—

—the disturbance manifested.

“Don’t copy me!” Ikumi said with a laugh—and then her body shook. “!”

She let out a little gasp, like she’d been elbowed in the ribs. Her lips tightened, and she knelt down.

“Akagi?” he called, moving closer.

He crouched down next to her, examining her face. Ikumi’s cheeks were flushed. She was shaking, her free arm wrapped around herself. It seemed like each breath she took was more heated than the last.

“What’s gotten into you?”

Some underlying condition? That was his first thought, but before he could ask, things got weirder.

“Sorry. I’m okay…” She tried gamely to smile at him…

…and the nurse cap she wore flew away.

But there was no wind.

It just moved.

Neither Ikumi nor Sakuta had touched it.

His mind flooded with question marks. His gaze followed it as the cap landed silently on the ground.

She’d had a hairpin holding the cap on and her hair up—and now it all came tumbling down. Nothing was touching her hair, but it was moving anyway. Pulling together, then falling apart, then gathered together by some invisible power once more. Even if there were a wind, it wouldn’t move like this.

And that invisible force slipped in past her collar and down her neck, teased around her chest, then went lower still. He couldn’t see it, but something was making wrinkles in her uniform. A dramatic tear ran down the white stockings below her skirt, and then a fist-sized hole tore open.

“……”

He had no words.

Sakuta hadn’t laid a finger on Ikumi. He hadn’t done anything.

Neither had she.

But some invisible force was at work.

“I swear, I’m fine,” she gasped.

He had no clue what was going on, but her ragged breaths made her seem weirdly enticing.