3
When Sakuta woke up the next morning, the sun was already high in the sky.
It was 11:50.
First period had come and gone, and second period was about to end. If he hustled out of here, he might make it in time for third.
But instead of panicking, he yawned and closed his eyes.
What with all the festival cleanup, there were no classes today. It was like having a holiday.
He enjoyed lying around for a while longer, then got up.
He found a note from Kaede on the dining room table saying she was at work. Taking shifts on a weekday morning was the kind of trick remote learning enabled. She could pick when to study and when to work of her own free will. And Kaede was taking full advantage of it.
Sakuta soloed a lunch that looked like breakfast, vacuumed with a noon news program blaring, then hung the laundry on the veranda.
The dry fall air would make short work of these clothes.
When he took them in later, it was almost five.
“She should be home soon.”
He picked up the receiver and punched eleven digits in by heart.
It rang three times.
“What?” Rio growled, less than enthusiastic.
“Where are you now?”
“Just back in Fujisawa.”
“Got time before your lesson?”
Her class started at seven.
“I’ll be busy browsing the bookstore.”
“Then wait there. I’ll join you.”
“I’ll leave the moment I’m done.”
Sakuta hung up, pretending he hadn’t heard that last bit.
In the electronics store by Fujisawa Station’s north exit, he took escalators up to the seventh floor—which offered a different view.
Bookshelves ran in every direction, and that quiet library hush hung in the air. This was probably the largest bookstore in the area, and Rio came here often.
He’d figured this was what she meant, but there was no sign of her in the section packed with physics tomes.
“Did she really leave already?”
Worried, he did a quick scan of the rest of the store. He found Rio standing by the college exam study guides.
“Sitting exams again?” he said, parking himself next to her.
“My student is.”
She snapped the book closed and returned it to the shelf. Apparently, it hadn’t met her exacting standards.
“And this student would be…?”
“Kunimi’s kohai, the one you asked about.”
“Toranosuke Kasai.”
“Wow, you actually remembered.”
“It’s hard to forget.”
“……”
Rio’s look suggested she’d caught him hiding something, but she didn’t bother digging. Must have decided it was something dumb.
“You ask how he decided on his school of choice?”
“He said it just felt right.”
“Ha.”
“So what do you want?”
He’d rather have talked about Toranosuke a bit longer, but if he tried anything, she might catch on. Clueing her in would just ruin all the boy’s clumsy attempts to hide it.
So he moved on to his actual goal here.
“So…”
“Are you sure it wasn’t the invisible man?” Rio said after he explained the baffling stuff that happened to Ikumi yesterday. “I mean, it’s not like you haven’t already met someone invisible.”
She meant the miniskirt Santa. Who was still being actively invisible.
“Touko Kirishima wasn’t with us.”
Or at least, he’d been unable to see her. No one but the two of them had been in arm’s length. But something had definitely been in contact with Ikumi.
“What did she say?”
“Made jokes about poltergeists.”
“So she was taking it in stride.”
“Weird body stuff is closest to Kaede’s case, I guess?”
Her classmates’ heartless words had been like knives cutting Kaede’s skin, and the pain in her own heart caused gnarly bruises to appear all over her.
“But this left no marks on her?”
“There were scratches on her back, running from her shoulder blade to her side.”
“…You saw that?”
Rio’s voice dropped to a growl.
“I was helping her change.”
“……”
“I just lowered the zipper on her back!”
“Did you tell Sakurajima that?”
“Can we keep it between us?”
“……”
That silence seemed ominous.
“But at the very least, it didn’t seem to be causing Akagi any pain. She herself said it wasn’t painful or agonizing.”
He didn’t think she was lying. Even if this had similarities to Kaede’s case, the core Adolescence Syndrome symptoms might be fundamentally different.
“From this, I can’t say much of anything. It’s all too vague.”
“If you’ve got nothing, I’m up shit creek.”
“Sounds like you don’t really get her yourself, Azusagawa.”
“Yeah…”
That was the real reason he was feeling lost here. Sakuta just didn’t have a good handle on who Ikumi Akagi was. There was no way for him to dive deeper into her Adolescence Syndrome, either. What emotions were giving rise to this supernatural stuff? That remained a mystery.
“But if what she said was true, I know one thing for sure.”
“That’s my Futaba! What?”
Rio just gave him a look.
“I thought you would’ve noticed,” she said.
“What?”
“She was in love with you. Bad enough she’d want to forget that.”
“…But there was nothing between us.”
Not that he’d been aware of.
“There are girls out there who get shot down with a single chocolate cornet.”
“…Can’t argue with experience.”
If it had been something simple like that, it stood to reason he couldn’t remember.
But he didn’t think he belonged in the same category as Yuuma with his dreamboat hunkiness.
“Better get those memories back before her ghost comes after you.”
Having seen the poltergeist in action, he didn’t find her comment remotely funny.
Leaving Rio to peruse the other guides, Sakuta headed down the escalators. He went out the doors on the second floor of the electronics shop below and stepped onto the elevated walkway to the station.
There was a flood of foot traffic as students and workers on their way home streamed out the north exit.
Fighting against the tide, Sakuta went down the stairs on the side that led away from his home. He had a shift at the restaurant next.
Walking down the commercial district past cram schools, drug stores, and cafés, he saw the yellow sign of his workplace up ahead.
And someone he knew was coming out.
She saw Sakuta approaching and stopped outside the restaurant. She was a woman in her forties and had maybe put on a few pounds. More specifically, it was Miwako Tomobe, a school counselor who’d helped Kaede a lot.
“Sakuta, long time no see. You’re looking all grown up.”
“Am I?”
He saw himself too often to really notice. But it had been a solid six months since they’d seen each other, so maybe he did look different.
“You stopped by to check on Kaede?”
She’d kept in touch even after Kaede graduated, and when she heard she was waiting tables, she’d popped by the restaurant a few times.
“I was in the area.”
“Well, thanks.”
“Visiting Kaede really picks me up. Working all on her own, really enjoying it—it’s nice to see.”
“You helped a lot.”
“She worked hard. And you were really there for her!”
“Let’s say it was all of that.”
Trading compliments always made him fidget.
“How’s college?”
“I’m getting by.”
“Good to hear.”
She looked relieved. But that soon passed. She glanced at him, and her lips moved as if silently saying “Oh,” like seeing him had jogged her memory. But she didn’t say anything. There was a hint of hesitation in her eyes.
“What?”
He wasn’t sure what she might have to say after all this time. So he waited for her.
“Do you happen to know Ikumi Akagi?” she asked, her tone much more serious.
“……Mm?”
He blinked at her. That was the last name he’d expected to hear. Had Miwako really brought her up? That shocked him so much he refused to believe it.
“How do you know her, Ms. Tomobe?”
“Last month, I started helping with the volunteer group she founded. Not with the tutoring, but with the mental health side.”
“Ah, that explains it.”
The pin fell into place. Ikumi was working with kids who’d stopped going to school. Having an actual school counselor involved would really help.
“When we first met, she mentioned where she’d gone to junior high.”
“And that tied her to me?”
“Yeah.” Miwako nodded, her eyes on Sakuta. She seemed worried about him.
She had a pretty good idea what Kaede’s troubles had led to and how Sakuta had been treated by his own classmates.
And she knew he wouldn’t welcome being reunited with any of them. A logical conclusion.
“Anything bothering you?”
“Nope.”
There was. Ikumi was using the dreaming hashtag to play hero and getting attacked by an Adolescence Syndrome poltergeist.
But that wasn’t what Miwako was asking about. She was asking about him. If the encounter had resurfaced any old traumas.
“Did Akagi strike you as the kind of person who’d talk shit about me?”
“No.”
She was quite clear on that.
“I haven’t known her long, but she’s the serious, righteous type.”
“I agree.”
They certainly had similar impressions of her. Saki had said much the same thing; likely everyone Ikumi Akagi had ever met did.
“That might lead to her hurting people sometimes…but she’s pretty aware of how people react.”
“Yeah.”
Raising the flag of righteousness meant clashing with people who insist you’re forcing your values down their throats. But he was pretty sure Ikumi would manage to avoid that kind of conflict. Like Miwako implied, she knew what to watch out for.
“But doesn’t that get exhausting?” he asked.
“Having everyone think you’re serious and righteous?”
“She knows exactly what everyone thinks of her.”
Like Miwako said, she was “aware.”
Ikumi would know what those looks meant.
Perhaps she’d even tried to adjust herself to them.
Trying to live up to expectations could weigh on a person. Like how Nodoka had suffered in high school, when her mother constantly compared her with Mai.
Could that be the cause of her Adolescence Syndrome?
“Akagi was born serious, so people around her started describing her accordingly. Or did they tell her she was serious, so she started acting the way they wanted? Hard to say which came first. But in Akagi’s case, she’s living up to those expectations, and it seems like she finds that fulfilling.”
Sure, if everyone relies on you and comes to you for help and you can live up to all of that—then you might very well end each day feeling like you’ve accomplished something. And that helps keep you going, letting you face the next day with your head held high. Letting you stay serious and righteous.
But still, Ikumi clearly had something causing her severe mental stress. Enough to manifest this Adolescence Syndrome poltergeist.
“If Akagi did have problems, what do you imagine they’d be?”
“Why do you ask?”
Miwako raised an eyebrow at him.
“Her friends said she’s been acting a bit off lately.”
He couldn’t exactly say the truth, so he went with a brazen lie, picturing Saki’s grumpy face.
“I guess the first thing that comes to mind…would be romantic problems.”
Her lips curled up in a smile. But Rio had already worked that angle. He didn’t need more.
“Anything else?” he asked.
“Well…” Miwako broke off, then looked at him, hesitating.
“I’m involved?”
“She might not have wanted to run into you.”
“……”
“I could see her inability to help you being the great failure of her life.”
“I didn’t go to her for help.”
He had begged his class to believe the Adolescence Syndrome affecting Kaede. But he’d never gone to Ikumi personally. Never directly addressed any individual girl.
Yet part of him thought Miwako’s words made perfect sense.
Ikumi would feel responsible.
She couldn’t stand seeing other people hurting.
And that was why she wanted to forget him.
That likely didn’t mean she literally wanted him excised from her memories. That wasn’t physically possible anyway. The more you want to forget something, the more it gets seared into your brain. That’s how human minds work.
When Ikumi said forget, she meant overcoming past regrets, turning them into a thing of the past.
Putting her third year of junior high behind her.
Now that she had Adolescence Syndrome of her own, she knew everything Sakuta had said was true. She was all too aware of what she’d done wrong. But she couldn’t fix that now.
The entire class had turned on Sakuta. They had rejected him. He’d lost count of how many times people had called him crazy.
Now? Ikumi knew they’d been wrong. But where did that leave her?
Was she beating herself up over past failures? Enough to wish she could forget him?
“You’ve got a shift, Sakuta? I’m not keeping you, am I?”
Miwako checked the time.
“I’m running early. Plenty of time.”
“Well, good.”
“Um, Ms. Tomobe…”
“Mm?”
“I got a favor to ask.”
“What?”
“Next time you go to this volunteer group, can you bring me along?”
Thinking wasn’t getting him anywhere so he decided to ask the girl herself.
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