Seishun Buta Yarou Series - Volume 11 - Chapter 4.4

4

Sakuta took a Kamakura-bound train from Shichirigahama Station; changed trains at Kamakura, Totsuka, and Yokohama for the Yokosuka Line, Tokaido Line, and Minatomirai Line, respectively; and finally arrived at his destination, Nihon-odori Station, after a solid hour’s ride.

Out on the platform, he moved quickly toward the gates. He went so fast that after tapping his commuter pass, his legs still bumped the gates as they opened.

Following the signs, he made his way aboveground from a coastal exit. There, he broke into a run. The electronic sign at the station had told him it was now 5:51 PM.

If the invite Ikumi gave him was accurate, the reunion only ran another nine minutes.

“Why am I even doing this…?!” he gasped, trying to stifle the rising panic.

He found it hard to believe Ikumi would really hurt anyone, but he didn’t have the guts to just let it be and head home. If something did happen, it would really eat at him. The knowledge that it might happen robbed him of all choice.

That was probably her intent.

She’d said she was waiting purely to draw him here.

He didn’t know what this Ikumi was plotting. He’d been thinking about that the whole way here but found no likely answer.

Sakuta didn’t get her. He felt like he’d started to get a handle on Ikumi Akagi, but that was the Ikumi who’d gone back to the other potential world. Sakuta barely knew anything about the Ikumi who actually belonged in this one. He didn’t remember her.

The one thing he was sure of was that if Ikumi had gone back to the world she came from, then the Ikumi from this world had returned to it.

 Waiting at the reunion.

If she’d sent that message, then she must have been there.

He wasn’t sure how different she was from the Ikumi he knew, so he had no clue what she could be up to. And that made him nervous.

He crossed at the walk light on the main drag. That road ran straight to the Osanbashi Pier, where luxury liners docked.

His destination was just past the intersection. A nice-looking Western building, classically styled. A very Yokohama exterior.

Sakuta caught his breath and opened the door.

As he stepped in, a voice welcomed him. There was a little chalkboard by the register that said, REUNION GUESTS TO THE ROOFTOP TERRACE. It was set up on a fancy easel.

Sakuta turned toward the stairs, but the clerk said, “That’s reserved today.”

Sakuta took out his invite and showed it to them.

“Oh! Go on up.”

He was waved to the stairs.

The clock here showed 5:55. The reunion party would wrap up in another five. No one would expect an invitee to drop in at the last minute like this.

Second floor, third, taking his time so he could keep his breath. Only the flight to the roof itself remained. One step at a time, and he could hear the crowd ahead. Voices and laughter came drifting down.

Sensing that through the door, he turned the knob and stepped over the threshold.

The view opened up.

The restaurant stood on the shore, and the roof offered a sweeping vista. Right ahead lay the glittering lights of the liners at Osanbashi. To the left was the Red Brick Warehouse, all lit up. To the right were the lights of the Bay Bridge.

The rectangular terrace contained maybe twenty-five people. About two-thirds of his old class.

They were seated in five or six groups, talking and eating, enjoying the view.

They didn’t spot Sakuta right away.

He moved toward the central buffet table, and the group seated nearest the door finally glanced his way.

Their conversation died. There was a wave of surprise and confusion…and only then did a murmur run through the room. That infected the next table over and then sparked the next.

In time, every eye in the room was on him.

“Uh, is that…?”

“Azusagawa, right?”

“Why?”

“Who invited him?”

“Don’t look at me!”

He could hear whispers from all sides.

Paying that no heed, he moved to the center of the roof, eyes on the back of a girl dead ahead.

She was seated with no group, focused only on eating as much roast beef as she could. Nobody seemed to have spotted her. She was right in the middle of the room, totally out of place, and should have stood out like a sore thumb.

Sakuta wasn’t distracting them—they legitimately couldn’t see her.

All eyes were still on him. Some boys nearby were exchanging glances, pushing each other to be the first to speak.

But Sakuta moved right up behind her.

“Akagi,” he said, putting his hand on her shoulder.

A ripple ran through the room. His old classmates’ jaws dropped. No one managed words.

“Huh?”

“Har?”

“Uh…”

“?!”

It was all just shocked noises and gasps. Their eyes turned from Sakuta to Ikumi.

It must have looked like Ikumi appeared out of empty space.

Unable to believe the evidence of their own eyes, they started going, “What was that?” “Was Ikumi here?” “Since when?” Everyone was looking around for answers.

“I’ve been here for over an hour. Since before Fujino arrived late and went around tapping glasses with everyone. I was here when Tanimura knocked his glass over and it broke. And when Nakai asked Ayusawa out. The whole time.”

“……”

No one said a word. Ikumi was describing real events, and that proved it. Everyone was turning pale. A wave of panic ran through the reunion venue.

Sakuta’s gaze was on Ikumi’s hands. She was holding a knife in her right and a fork in her left. She’d been using them to devour the roast beef. But she was still holding on to them. And they could certainly be used as weapons…

Still clutching both, she turned to face him.

“It’s been a while, Azusagawa.”

Her face and voice were both unmistakably Ikumi. But Sakuta could tell he didn’t know this Ikumi. Her entire being was different. When he’d grasped her shoulder, she didn’t tense up at all. His touch wasn’t enough to startle her.

“You remember me?” she asked.

Even the way she talked wasn’t quite like the Ikumi he knew. That Ikumi Akagi hadn’t gone around testing people. Didn’t have it in her.

“Totally forgot you,” he said.

He’d remembered the Ikumi he met in the other world, who’d then come here from that world.

But he had almost no memories of what she’d been like in junior high. That impression wasn’t being overwritten now that they were face-to-face.

“That hurts,” she said, with a vague sort of smile. A deflection.

The rest of their old class were watching, riveted. Carefully judging when they should join in.

With this much attention, no one wanted to be the first to speak.

Ikumi took a long look around the terrace, then put her knife and fork together and set them down.

“Did you all see that?” she asked, addressing the crowd.

No one answered. Ikumi was relentless.

“I had Adolescence Syndrome.”

She hurled a bombshell into the silence.

“No, wait, Akagi—,” a male voice cried.

“Yeah, Ikumi, that’s not funny!” the girl next to him chimed in.

Their words denied it, but they looked very tense. They’d just witnessed something unquestionably supernatural and couldn’t quite refute that yet.

But he imagined this was Ikumi’s goal.

Once you experienced it, you had to believe. There was no choice but to accept it was Adolescence Syndrome.

“Think it was a trick?” she asked flatly. “Then explain it.”

Her gaze swept the room, searching for a volunteer. Not one person attempted a response. The room was now against it.

“Adolescence Syndrome exists. This is a fact.”

With the roof this quiet, Ikumi didn’t even need to raise her voice.

“Azusagawa wasn’t wrong. We were.”

“……”

Their old classmates met this claim with silence. But this one didn’t last that long.

“It’s a bit late to drag that up, Ikumi,” the same girl said. She had a cluster of four or five girls all around her, all dressed similarly. She was clearly the group’s leader. “Adolescence Syndrome? How old do you think we are?”

This was an accusation now.

If their birthday had come already, they’d be nineteen—everyone else was still eighteen. But no one bothered putting that into words.

“I’m done. That fuss Azusagawa kicked up left the teachers breathing down our necks and made our parents all lecture us, and even once we escaped to high school, this crap gets brought up every time we meet anyone from our old school. Like we’re the bad guys!”

The longer she talked, the more her frustrations spilled out. And Sakuta could feel those emotions pulling the rest of the class along.

“Like, I was really worried about coming here? I never talked to any of you after graduation.”

The girls around her were all nodding. The gazes of their other classmates all showed signs of agreement.

To them, this was the truth. That was how they’d all viewed the conflict at the time.

Sakuta had ruined everything. And that had followed them into high school.

“But I was glad I came! Until, like, a minute ago.”

Lots of nods to that.

“I thought our third year was absolutely shit. But there were good times, too! Talking to everyone helped remind me of that.”

She was now speaking for all of Class 3-1, and Ikumi was just taking that head-on. Letting all the baleful glares fall on her.

“So don’t go blowing that again. Especially with that Adolescence Syndrome bullshit!”

The anger exploded.

“Yeah, Ikumi!”

“What’s the point??”

The girls around her were chiming in now.

But Ikumi’s expression never wavered.

“Rina, if you were so worried, why’d you come?” she asked, finally breaking her silence.

She was addressing the girl group’s leader. Rina must have been her name. Even that didn’t help Sakuta recall her family name. Maybe he’d never learned it. In that case, how could he remember?

“……”

Rina had no answer to Ikumi’s question.

“If you were all worried, why come at all?”

Ikumi turned the question to the crowd.

Safe to assume Ikumi knew exactly why. Which was why she was asking. It was a mean question. Sakuta knew the answer himself.

“I had a dream about the reunion,” someone said.

“……”

No one else spoke.

“You wrote one, too, Rina. With the dreaming hashtag.”

“……”

Rina pursed her lips, stubbornly silent.

“You all did.”

“……”

Still no one spoke. They couldn’t admit that now. Not after rejecting the idea of Adolescence Syndrome both here and back in junior high.

Admitting it would prove their own actions weren’t consistent. It would undermine the foundation of their argument. It meant admitting they were wrong and accepting their guilt. That was why they’d dug in and chose this stifling silence.

It had been just like this back in the day. The mood they’d made was crushing them.

“You remember what everyone said back then? ‘Azusagawa’s lost it!’”

“……”

The silence signaled agreement.

“But we’re the ones who’d lost it.”

“……”

“We mocked Azusagawa out of ignorance, hurt him with our false accusations, labeled him crazy, and ruined his life.”

Ikumi’s voice quivered. Her regrets were palpable. A mountain of shame and self-loathing lent weight to her words.

“And the way we can still laugh even though we know we’re wrong proves we’ve lost it.”

Their classmates’ faces were a sea of blank slates. Like her words had paralyzed them. They were that devastating. A dangerous allure stemming from how right she was.

“B-but even so, it’s a bit late!”

A boy with hair dyed brown spoke up. Every single person here likely felt the same way. But no one dared agree with him. No one even showed signs of doing so.

They’d decided that wasn’t a wave to ride.

“Rina’s right,” Ikumi said, ignoring him, too. Her eyes were on the floor. “Because of that whole mess, not much went right for me.”

“Ikumi…”

“I did not enjoy most of high school. It hurt to be there. That’s how much I was carrying it with me.”

“Then…what?” Rina asked, a hint of desperation in her voice.

“But even so, only one person has a right to put this all behind us. You, Azusagawa.”

Ikumi looked up, catching his eye.

The rest of the class all turned to him.

Honestly, he was not pleased to be in the spotlight like this. Not his idea of fun. But he’d been waiting for that. For his chance to interrupt.

The sea breeze brushed by, and he took a breath.

“Noice,” he said, with a goofy grin.

No one reacted. No one knew how to react yet. And their continued silence worked in his favor.

“Wow, that went even better than expected, Akagi!”

“……”

Ikumi looked just as confused.

He ignored her.

“Akagi and I go to the same college. When she told me about this reunion, I roped her into this.”

“No, that’s not…”

“Great trick, right? Akagi nailed the performance, too! I couldn’t bring myself to stop her!”

Their classmates still weren’t saying anything. Just staring fixedly at Sakuta.

“This was all a prank. I figure none of you really care, but you sure don’t need to. Junior high stuff is soooo long ago.”

“……”

Their faces were still frozen, like they didn’t dare breathe.

“And my life was hardly ruined. I can say for a fact I am happier than any of you. The media kicked up a fuss, so I imagine a few of you heard? But I’m dating Mai Sakurajima. So, like…sucks to be you!”

“……”

No one spoke. Not even Ikumi.

“That was the punch line.”

He’d been trying to lighten the mood, but no one seemed to think it was funny. Only Sakuta was managing an awkward smile. Most of the class seemed to think he really meant that last line.

He didn’t feel like correcting that impression. This suited him just fine.

There was a part of him that felt pretty dang smug.

He hadn’t planned on showing up his old classmates, but now that he had, a part of him wanted to rub it in.

So he might as well play the class black sheep till the bitter end. That had always come naturally.

“That’s all I came to say.”

Not like he’d ever see them again.

“I’m outta here. See ya.”

He waved a hand and turned on his heel. Sakuta left the venue without anyone saying a word.